< 

CX'^o-  . 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT 

From  the  Library  of 

Henry  Goldman,  Ph.D. 

1886-1972 


AND  OTHER  MATTERS 


On  Falling  in  Love 

and  Other  Matters 


3^ew  York 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  CO. 
1917 


Printtd  z'«  Great  Britain  by  Hazel'-,  IVatson  &*  Viney,  Ld., 
London  and  Ayltfbury. 


PAGE 

I.  THE  POETS  WHEN  THEY  FALL  IN  LOVE         .         .         3 

II.  BYRON  AND  HIS  EARLY  LOVE  AFFAIRS         .         .       n 

III.  THE  STORY  OF  LADY  CAROLINE  LAMB  .         .21 

IV.  BYRON  AND  HIS  WIFE         .....       29 
V.  BURNS  :    THE  RUSTIC  GALLANT  ....       43 

VI.  THE  STORY  OF  BONNIE  JEAN  AND  OTHER  MATTERS      51 

VII.  THE  LOVE  STORY  OF  KEATS         .         .         .         .61 

VIII.  A  BATCH  OF  TOUCHING  LOVE  LETTERS         .         .       71 

IX.  SHELLEY  AS  THE  AMORIST   ....                81 

X.  CONCERNING  SOME  FAMOUS  LOVE  LETTERS  .          .      91 

XI.  THE  GREATEST  WOMAN  LETTER  WRITER      .         .     103 

XII.  FOUR  LETTERS  THAT  WILL  LIVE  .         .         .         .     115 

XIII.  No  ROOM  FOR  POETRY 129 

XIV.  THE  MUSE  ON  THE  MARKET         .         .         .  137 
XV.  A  PLEA  FOR  THE  MINOR  POET     ....     145 

XVI.  THE  POETRY  OF  NEW  LANDS       ....     153 

XVII.  A  VENETIAN  ROMANCE        .....     161 

XVIII.    WAS  BOSWELL  A  FOOL? 171 

XIX.  SOME  THOUGHTS  ON  CHARLES  LAMB     .         .         .181 

XX.  IN  PRAISE  OF  DULNESS       .....     189 

XXI.   THE  CHILDREN  OF  BOOKS 197 

XXII.  SOME  FAMOUS  PLAGIARISMS          ....     207 

XXIII.  THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  RIGHT  WORD        .         .217 

XXIV.  THE  SOULS  OF  HOUSES 225 

XXV.  AT  THE  SHRINE  OF  THE  WHITE  WALL          .         .     233 

XXVI.  SHAKESPEARE'S  EARLIEST  CRITICS         .                   .     243 

XXVII.  THE  BOY  AND  WHAT  HE  READS          .         .         .251 

v 


I 

THE  POETS  WHEN  THEY  FALL 
IN  LOVE 


"  Come  hither,  boy :    if  ever  thou  shalt  love, 
In  the  sweet  pangs  of  it,  remember  me  ; 
For  such  as  I  am,  all  true  lovers  are, 
Unstaid  and  skittish  in  all  motions  else, 
Save  in  the  constant  image  of  the  creature 
That  is  belov'd." 

"  Twelfth  Night." 


"  I  must  have  people  to  love  me :    I  can't  do  without  everyone 
loving  me." 

/.  M.  Barrie  ("Little  Mary"). 


I 

The  Poets  when  they  fall  in 
Love 


THERE  seems  to  be  some  fatal  quality  in  the 
artistic  temperament  that  shipwrecks  the  poet 
lover  and  is  always  at  war  with  the  domesticities. 
Poets  have  never  made  constant  lovers  or  prudent  and 
sober  husbands.  Of  course  there  have  been  famous  excep- 
tions like  Wordsworth,  who  once  said  it  was  not  because 
poets  possessed  genius  that  they  made  unhappy  homes, 
but  because  they  did  not  possess  genius  enough.  But 
Wordsworth  married  a  woman  whose  loyalty  and  affec- 
tion, unchanged  and  unchangeable  through  every  period  of 
his  life,  exalted  her  sex  for  ever  in  his  eyes ;  she  was 
apostrophised  in  one  of  the  tenderest  couplets  to  be  found 
in  the  whole  range  of  amorous  poetry  : — 

"  Nought  in  loveliness  compares 
With  what  thou  art  to  me." 

Mrs.  Browning  comes  nearest  to  this  ideal  of  any  other 
poet's  wife  we  know  ;  she  was  herself  a  poet,  and  therefore 
abiding  proof  that  congeniality  of  sentiment  need  not 
necessarily  disturb  the  harmonies  of  domestic  life.  Shelley 
had  not  the  same  experience  with  Harriet,  who  also  wrote 

3 


The  Poets  when  they  fall  in  Love 

poetry,  nor  was  he  much  better  off  with  Mary  Woll- 
stonecraft,  the  daughter  of  a  poet.  One  view  is  that  a 
poet's  wife  should  always  admire  her  husband's  per- 
formances, and  pardon  his  infirmities.  But  this  is  a  counsel 
of  perfection,  and  women  are  only  human. 

But,  on  the  whole,  I  think  it  will  be  found  that  the 
fault  is  on  the  side  of  the  poet — both  in  the  role  of  lover 
and  in  that  of  husband.  He  is,  as  was  said  of  Carlyle, 
difficult  to  live  with.  As  an  instance  of  this  :  Mrs.  Carlyle, 
with  the  best  of  intentions,  once  sat  knitting  while  Thomas 
wrote.  The  sage  complained  of  the  noise  her  needles  made, 
and  accordingly  she  stopped,  and  sat  motionless.  "  Jane," 
he  said,  "  I  can  hear  you  breathing  !  "  Now,  Mrs.  Car- 
lyle ought  to  have  understood.  Perhaps  Lady  Byron,  who 
once  checked  the  inspiration  of  genius  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances, had  much  more  cause  for  complaint.  She 
knocked  at  her  husband's  study  door  to  tell  him  dinner  was 
ready,  and  remarked  apologetically,  "  Am  I  in  your  way  ?  " 
"  Yes,  damnably  !  "  was  Byron's  retort. 

One  would  think  there  was  no  sufficient  reason  why  a 
man  should  not  write  excellent  poetry  and  be  a  good 
husband,  but  usually  it  has  been  the  case  that  the  better 
his  poetry  the  more  numerous  his  frailties. 

It  was  Byron  who  said  his  handwriting  was  as  bad  as  his 
character.  He  might  have  added  that  as  his  poetry  grew 
in  force  and  splendour,  his  morals  continued  to  decline. 
The  lady  who  said  she  was  surprised  to  hear  that  the  poet 
had  any  morals  at  all,  took  him  at  his  own  estimate  ;  but 
while  he  glorified  his  vices  absurdly,  he  once  peremptorily 
ordered  a  young  gentleman  on  his  estate  to  marry  the  girl 

4 


The  Poets  when  they  fall  in  Love 

he  had  deceived.  Some  of  Burns's  tenderest  verse  was 
written  on  his  favourite  light-skirts. 

The  domesticities  nowhere  make  a  fine  figure  in  poesy. 
Prior's  Chloe  is  reputed  to  have  been  a  common  drab  who 
ran  away  with  the  poet's  plate,  and  Dr.  Johnson  mentions 
that  after  an  evening  in  the  sparkling  company  of  Oxford 
and  Bolingbroke  and  Pope,  Prior  would  "  go  and  omoke 
a  pipe  and  drink  a  bottle  of  ale  with  a  common  soldier 
and  his  wife."  But  this,  I  take  it,  may  have  been  the 
shortest  cut  to  earth  again. 

The  great  poets  have  never  lacked  apologists  for  their 
weaknesses,  whether  their  wives  were  to  blame  or  not. 
The  line  these  apologists  have  usually  taken  is  that  if  we 
have  poets,  we  must  pay  for  them.  And  it  is  always  the 
women  who  pay.  It  might  have  been  infinitely  better  for 
the  greatest  English  poets  (to  say  nothing  of  their  women) 
if  they  had  followed  the  example  of  Thomson,  the  author 
of  "  The  Seasons,"  and  shunned  "  the  flowery  tempting 
paths  of  love."  But  it  might  have  been  much  worse  for 
the  world.  There  is  just  the  possibility  that  some  of  them 
might  never  have  been  great  poets  at  all. 

What  they  learned  in  suffering  and  transgression  they 
told  in  song,  and  often  the  sweet  romance  of  a  youthful 
passion  has  been  the  inspiration  of  their  finest  work. 
Shakespeare  declared  that : — 

"  Never  durst  poet  touch  a  pen  to  write 
Until  his  ink  were  tempered  with  love's  sighs." 

The  poets  who  thought  like  Thomson  are  few  indeed. 
Herrick  wrote  a  poem  in  praise  of  bachelorhood,  and 

5 


The  Poets  when  they  fall  in  Love 

yet  he  was  the  author  of  that  immortal  phrase  the 
"  tempestuous  petticoat."  Goldsmith  was  never  in  love. 
Swift,  although  his  connection  with  Vanessa  and  Stella 
will  always  rank  amongst  the  most  remarkable  romances 
in  literature,  seems  to  have  been  constitutionally  incapable 
of  passion,  and  sacrificed  the  happiness  of  two  women  to 
the  gratification  of  his  own  vanity.  The  fact  that  he 
wrote  delightful  love  letters  does  not  prove  that  he  was 
in  love.  The  Dean,  we  know,  could  write  finely  upon  a 
broomstick,  and  as  both  his  ladies  were  by  no  means  ill- 
looking,  the  task  of  corresponding  with  them  must  have 
been  both  easy  and  agreeable. 

Byron  was  perhaps  the  last  of  the  fashionable  poets  in 
whom  beauty  and  genius  combined  to  make  the  petted 
darling  of  drawing-rooms  and  the  idol  of  sentimental  young 
ladies  who  suspected  themselves  of  the  literary  gift.  There 
are  no  Lady  Caroline  Lambs  that  we  know  of  nowadays, 
and  it  is  considered  no  part  of  a  liberal  education  for  young 
ladies  to  go  steadily  through  a  heated  course  of  senti- 
mental novel  reading.  The  daintiest  and  oftenest  quoted 
lines  ever  spoken  by  man  to  maid  were  written  by  the 
rejected  lover  of  a  fashionable  beauty  : — 

"  I  could  not  love  thee,  dear,  so  much 
Lov'd  I  not  honour  more." 

These  lines  are  remembered  while  their  author  is  for- 
gotten. The  story  goes  that  he  took  to  drink  because  the 
lady  they  celebrated  looked  for  a  husband  elsewhere. 
That  was  an  entirely  unromantic  sort  of  consolation,  and 
one  cannot  help  thinking  that  Waller  found  a  better  way 

6 


The  Poets  when  they  fall  in  Love 

out  of  the  difficulty  when  Sacharissa  jilted  him.  He 
married  a  widow.  But  his  supreme  triumph  came  in  after 
years ;  he  met  the  imperious  lady  in  her  old  age,  and  she 
good-humouredly  inquired  when  he  was  going  to  write 
such  verses  on  her  again.  "  When  you  are  as  young, 
madam,"  said  he,  "  and  as  handsome  as  you  were  then  !  " 

It  was  always  dangerous  in  those  days  for  dull  women 
to  ruffle  witty  poets.  A  garrulous  lady  is  said  to  have 
compared  Mrs.  Milton,  then  not  on  the  best  of  terms  with 
her  lord,  to  a  rose.  "  Well,"  the  author  of  "  Paradise 
Lost "  dryly  observed,  "  I'm  no  judge  of  colour,  but  it 
may  be  so  ;  I've  often  felt  the  pricks." 

How  many  women  owe  their  immortality  to  the  pen  of 
the  poet  ?  The  roll,  at  any  rate,  includes  Laura  and 
Beatrice,  both  of  whom  may  be  said  to  have  come  very 
near  canonisation;  Spenser's  Elizabeths,  Shelley's  Harriet 
and  Mary,  Byron's  Mary  Duff,  the  Highland  lassie  of  his 
dreams  (who  stands  outside  the  gallery  of  soft  tigresses  like 
Haidee),  Burns's  Highland  Mary  and  Jean,  Mary  Hutchin- 
son,  who  became  Mrs.  Wordsworth  (the  phantom  of  delight), 
and  Coleridge's  Sarah  and  Mary  Evans.  These  were  either 
lovers  or  wives  or  both.  Herrick  made  his  servant-maid 
immortal  in  a  gem  of  four  lines  : — 

"  In  this  little  urn  is  laid 
Prudence  Baldwin,  once  my  maid ; 
From  whose  happy  spark  here  let 
Spring  the  purple  violet." 


II 

BYRON  AND  HIS  EARLY  LOVE 
AFFAIRS 


"  Out  upon  it !    I  have  loved 

Three  whole  days  together  ; 
And  am  like  to  love  three  more, 
If  it  prove  fair  weather." 

Sir  John  Suckling. 


"  By  Heaven,  I  do  love ;  and  it  hath  taught  me  to  rhyme  and  to 
be  melancholy  ;  and  here  is  part  of  my  rhyme  and  here  my  melan- 
choly  " 

"  Love's  Labour's  Lost." 


"  And  all  my  story — that  much  passion  slew  me." 

Keats. 


II 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love 
Affairs 


LORD  BYRON  must  be  ranked    as   the   greatest 
gallant  of  all   the  great  poets.     His  amours  live 
after  him    in   books    that    occupy    no   less   than 
twelve  pages  of  the  British   Museum   Catalogue,   a   vast 
budget  of  fact  and  fiction  full  of  human  interest  and  reveal- 
ing a  tragedy  which  is  as  moving  as  anything  in  literature — 
the  tragedy  of  a  great  heart  consumed  by  fierce  and  angry 
passions. 

If  Byron  has  been  written  down  unjustly  as  a  wild 
profligate  who  played  with  women's  hearts  for  mere  wanton- 
ness he  has  only  himself  to  blame.  Throughout  his  life 
he  had  the  incorrigible  trick  of  multiplying  his  own  in- 
trigues, and  setting  down  in  the  frankest  possible  manner 
every  particle  of  evidence  that  could  be  thought  to  give 
the  world  a  shock  and  throw  an  evil  glamour  over  his 
name.  No  man  ever  took  the  world  more  thoroughly  into 
his  confidence.  In  everything  he  wrote,  he  affected  to 
despise  its  opinion,  yet  fame  and  notoriety  were  to  him  as 
the  breath  of  life.  He  had  no  sooner  begun  to  write  than 
he  published  the  fullest  details  of  the  romantic  attach- 
ments of  his  earliest  years.  And  the  environment  of 

II 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

Byron  was  peculiarly  favourable  to  the  production  of  just 
such  a  man  as  he  was.  His  father  was  a  notorious  rake, 
who  after  breaking  the  heart  of  one  woman,  married  the 
mother  of  Byron,  and  squandered  the  estates  in  profligacy. 
The  lady  was  one  of  the  Gordons  of  Gight,  and  when  the 
pair  came  together,  a  Scottish  rhymester — and  a  prophet 
into  the  bargain — produced  the  following  rhyme  : — 

"  O  whare  are  ye  gaen,  Miss  Gordon  ? 
O  whare  are  ye  gaen,  so  bonny  and  braw  ? 
Ye've  married,  ye've  married  wi'  Johnny  Byron, 
He'll  squander  the  lands  o'  Gight  awa'. 

"The  youth  is  a  rake,  frae  England  he's  come; 
The  Scots  dinna  ken  his  extraction  ava  ! 
He  keeps  up  his  missus,  his  landlord  he  duns, 
That's  fast  drawin'  the  lands  o'  Gight  awa'." 

Byron  was  born  with  the  strongest  appetites.  His 
adolescence  was  passed  under  the  care  of  a  mother  herself 
incapable  of  self-control,  and  blind  to  the  virtue  of  a 
good  example.  He  was  taken  to  Scotland  at  an  early  age, 
and  it  was  there  that  love  and  poetry  had  a  beginning 
with  him.  Dante  fell  in  love  with  Beatrice  at  nine,  and 
Canova  felt  the  same  passion  at  the  age  of  five.  Byron 
was  only  eight  when  he  met  a  little  Scotch  girl  named 
Mary  Duff,  and  years  afterwards,  when  his  gallantries  were 
the  talk  of  Europe,  he  recalled  the  incident : — 

"  I  have  a  passion  for  the  name  of  Mary, 
For  once  it  was  a  magic  sound  to  me." 

Seventeen  years  afterwards,  when  he  was  reflecting  on 
the  romance  of  his  boyhood,  he  wrote  in  his  Journal : — 

12 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

"  I  have  been  thinking  lately  a  good  deal  about  Mary  Duff.  How 
very  odd  that  I  should  have  been  so  utterly,  devotedly  fond  of  that 
girl  when  I  could  neither  feel  passion  nor  know  the  meaning  of  the 
word.  ...  I  have  been  attached  fifty  times  since  that  period  yet  I 
recollect  all  we  said  to  each  other,  all  our  caresses,  her  features,  my 
restlessness,  sleeplessness,  my  tormenting  my  mother's  maid  to 
write  for  me  to  her,  which  she  at  last  did  to  quiet  me.  How  very 
pretty  is  the  perfect  image  of  her  in  my  memory — her  dark  brown 
hair  and  hazel  eyes,  her  brown  dress.  I  should  be  quite  grieved  to 
see  her  now ;  the  reality,  however  beautiful,  would  destroy,  or  at 
least  confuse  the  features  of  the  lovely  Peri  which  then  existed  in 
her,  and  still  lives  in  my  imagination  at  a  distance  of  more  than 
1 6  years." 

At  twenty-five  he  composed  a  song  in  memory  of  his 
Highland  lassie,  and  after  flinging  it  into  the  fire  said, 
"  Mary  Duff  was  my  first  of  flames  before  most  people 
begin  to  burn."  During  the  next  seven  years  he  formed 
two  more  juvenile  attachments.  He  was  twelve  and  a 
half  when  he  professed  to  fall  in  love  with  his  cousin 
Margaret  Parker,  and  at  fifteen  was  wildly  enamoured  of 
Mary  Chaworth.  It  may  be  said  that  love  and  poetry 
began  with  him  almost  at  one  and  the  same  time.  When 
Margaret  Parker  died  of  consumption,  he  wrote  the  follow- 
ing elegy  :— 

"  Hushed  are  the  winds  and  still  the  evening  gloom, 

Not  e'en  a  zephyr  wanders  through  the  grove, 
Whilst  I  return  to  view  my  Margaret's  tomb, 
And  scatter  flowers  on  the  dust  I  love." 

This  was  Byron's  first  dash  into  poetry,  and  many  an 
amateur  has  beaten  it  easily.  The  effect  of  passion  on 
the  poet  was  in  his  own  words  that  "  I  could  not  sleep. 
I  could  not  eat.  I  could  not  rest." 

13 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

Byron  was  fond,  in  his  after  life,  of  conjuring  up  in 
memory  these  juvenile  attachments  and  gilding  them  with 
all  the  romance  of  poetry.  There  is,  for  example,  the  love 
affair  with  Mary  Chaworth,  a  young  heiress,  whose  estates 
lay  next  to  his  own.  Many  of  the  contributors  to  the 
existing  mass  of  Byron  literature  have  expressed  the  view 
that  if  instead  of  marrying  a  hunting  squire,  this  young 
lady  had  joined  her  fortunes  to  those  of  Byron,  the  whole 
course  of  the  poet's  life  might  have  been  changed.  Byron 
seems  to  have  thought  so  too.  The  pair  met  at  Newstead, 
and  Byron  confesses  that  the  ardour  of  love  was  all  on  one 
side.  The  young  lady's  heart  was  given  to  another,  and 
her  sentiments  towards  the  poet  were  brutally  expressed 
in  the  remark  made  at  a  dance  : — "  Do  you  think  I  care 
anything  for  that  lame  boy  ?  " 

Such  symptoms  of  calf  love  as  the  writing  of  frenzied 
farewells  in  doubtful,  despairing  verse  are  not  peculiar  to 
noble  lords.  But  young  Byron's  melancholy  was  of  a 
quite  exceptional  kind.  Whether  the  version  of  Miss 
Chaworth's  repulse  of  the  poet  is  a  correct  one  or  not,  the 
cruel  reference  to  his  infirmity  wounded  him  very  deeply. 
But  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  disappointment  and  bitter- 
ness he  felt  had  anything  like  the  powerful  influence  on 
the  poet's  future  life  and  conduct  which  Moore  and  other 
writers  would  have  us  believe.  The  evidence  of  plaintive 
and  melancholy  verse  provided  at  intervals  of  a  few  months, 
for  some  years,  is  not  conclusive  testimony  in  the  case  of 
Byron.  It  is  but  the  glow  of  imaginative  after-thought 
that  bears  so  strongly  on  everything  of  an  impersonal 
nature  in  his  writings.  When  Burns  lost  Ellison  Begbie, 

H 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

he  declared  that  the  light  of  his  life  had  gone  out.  In  this 
he  only  delivered  himself  as  a  poet.  It  was  the  same  with 
Byron.  If  he  laid  on  the  dark  colours  with  great  freedom, 
he  was  of  a  melancholy  temperament  at  the  best.  But 
his  state  of  mind  must  not  be  assumed  to  be  quite  as  bad 
as  he  would  have  us  believe  from  the  despairing  lines  he 
wrote  soon  afterwards  : — 

"  O  memory  !    Torture  me  no  more, 

The  present's  all  o'ercast; 
My  hopes  of  future  bliss  are  o'er, 
In  memory  veil  the  past." 

Up  to  the  time  of  leaving  college  and  setting  out  on  his 
travels  in  Spain,  Byron  sounded  the  deepest  depths  of 
anguish  and  despair  in  everything  he  wrote.  This  was 
in  reality  the  first  workings  of  that  colossal  egotism 
which  he  cultivated  throughout  his  life.  At  nineteen 
he  wrote :  "  Since  I  left  Harrow,  I  have  become  idle 
and  conceited  from  scribbling  rhyme  and  making  love  to 
women."  Among  his  favourite  authors  were  Rabelais  and 
Rousseau  and  Sterne,  and  at  Newstead,  the  ancestral 
home, 

"Where  superstition  once  had  made  her  den 
Now  Paphian  girls  were  known  to  sing  and  smile." 

Although,  as  events  proved,  Miss  Chaworth's  married 
life  resulted  in  nothing  but  abject  misery,  the  reading  of 
the  tender  verses  in  "  The  Farewell,"  and  those  he  wrote 
on  first  seeing  that  lady's  child,  do  not  convince  us  that 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

she  would   have   been    any   more   fortunate   in   choosing 
Byron.     Indeed,  he  said  himself  in  "  Childe  Harold  "  : — 

"  Ah,  happy  she  !    To  'scape  from  him  whose  kiss 
Had  been  pollution  unto  aught  so  chaste  ; 
Who  soon  had  left  her  charms  for  vulgar  bliss, 
And  spoiled  her  goodly  lands  to  gild  his  waste 
Nor  calm  domestic  bliss  had  ever  deigned  to  taste." 

Byron  now  embarked  on  that  famous  tour  during  which 
he  wrote  "  Childe  Harold,"  and  flung  himself  into  the 
follies  and  dissipation  of  the  East  with  the  full  strength  of 
his  arduous  and  passionate  nature.  It  would  be  a  debase- 
ment of  the  word  to  say  that  any  of  the  numerous  attach- 
ments which  he  made  in  the  course  of  his  tour  through 
Spain  and  the  Isles  of  Greece  were  inspired  by  love.  The 
poet  did  not  hesitate  in  his  letters  to  avow  frankly  that  he 
regarded  woman  mostly  as  a  fine  animal,  and  was  in  favour 
of  treating  her  as  such.  "  The  whole  of  the  present 
system  with  regard  to  the  female  sex,"  he  wrote,  "  is  a 
remnant  of  barbarism,  of  the  chivalry  of  our  forefathers  "  ; 
and  again,  "  They  ought  to  mind  home,  to  be  well  fed  and 
clothed,  but  not  mix  in  society ;  well  educated,  too,  in 
religion,  but  to  read  neither  poetry  nor  politics ;  they 
should  indulge  in  music,  drawing,  dancing,  also  a  little 
gardening  and  ploughing  now  and  then."  However  much 
he  despised  the  sex  in  his  heart,  and  advertised  to  the 
world  his  unhappy  relations  with  them,  Byron  was  their 
slave.  He  revelled  in  an  intrigue,  and  delighted  to  be  known 
as  a  rake.  His  letters  are  full  of  descriptions  of  rich 
Eastern  beauties.  He  ran  the  risk  of  a  stiletto  for  robbing 

16 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

a  Venetian  of  his  wife,  and  the  popularity  of  his  "  Corsair  " 
in  the  boudoirs  of  London  inspired  him  with  a  childish 
vanity. 

He  passed  from  passionate  adoration  one  day  to  con- 
temptuous indifference  and  hate  the  next.  In  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Hodgson,  he  says  in  a  fine  burst  of  temper,  "  Never 
mention  a  woman  again  in  any  letter  to  me,  or  even  allude 
to  the  existence  of  the  sex,"  and  in  his  Journal,  we  find  this 
memorandum  :  "  The  more  I  see  of  men  the  less  I  like 
them.  //  /  could  but  say  so  of  women,  too,  all  would  be  well. 
Why  can't  I  ?  " 

Burns  asked  himself  a  question  very  much  to  the  same 
effect,  and  failed  to  answer  it. 

The  record  of  the  greater  part  of  Byron's  amorous 
experiences  with  his  Spanish,  Venetian,  and  Italian  ladies 
is  to  be  found  in  his  poems,  for,  as  he  says  in  "Don  Juan" : — 

"  Men  who  partake  all  passjions  as  they  pass 
Acquire  the  deep  and  bitter  power  to  give 
Their  images  again  as  in  a  glass." 

At  Lisbon  he  encountered  two  Spanish  ladies,  one  of 
whom  cut  off  a  lock  of  his  hair  and  presented  him  in  return 
with  one  of  her  own,  about  three  feet  in  length,  which  he 
forwarded  to  his  mother.  As  he  knew  no  Spanish,  the 
flirtation  was  conducted  by  the  aid  of  a  dictionary,  and  is 
thus  described  in  verse  : — 

"  'Tis  pleasing  to  be  schooPd  in  a  strange  tongue 
By  female  lips  and  eyes — that  is,  I  mean 
When  both  the  teacher  and  the  taught  are  young, 
As  was  the  case  at  least  where  I  have  been." 
C  I7 


Byron  and  his  Early  Love  Affairs 

Florence,  of  Malta,  the  lady  who  was  idealised  in  "  Childe 
Harold,"  awakened  a  romantic  interest  in  Byron's  breast, 
(i)  because  she  had  been  shipwrecked,  (2)  had  married  un- 
happily, (3)  had  to  fly  from  Bonaparte,  (4)  had  several 
times  risked  her  life,  (5)  was  not  then  twenty-five  years  of 
age — a  truly  remarkable  record.  Here  at  any  rate  for 
once  was  the  spectacle  of  Byron  maintaining  a  purely 
platonic  connection : — 

"  Thus  Harold  deem'd  as  in  that  lady's  eye 
He  look'd,  and  met  each  beam  without  a  thought 
Save  admiration  glancing  harmless  by." 

Then  followed  the  acquaintance,  equally  platonic,  with 
a  Greek  lady  to  whom  was  addressed  the  famous  song 
commencing,  "  Maid  of  Athens,  ere  we  part "  ;  a  few 
encounters  with  robbers  ;  a  passion  for  a  married  lady  ; 
and  a  challenge  and  an  "  attachment "  to  three  more 
Grecians.  These  incidents  in  the  panorama  of  Byron's 
lovemaking  are  a  curious  prelude  to  a  moral  letter  he 
wrote  to  his  mother,  who  informed  him  that  an  illegitimate 
child  had  been  born  on  his  estate.  "  I  will  have,"  he 
replied,  "  no  gay  deceivers  on  my  estate,  and  I  shall  not 
allow  my  tenants  a  privilege  I  do  not  permit  myself — that 
of  debauching  each  other's  daughters.  God  knows  I  have 
been  guilty  of  many  excesses,  but  as  I  have  laid  down  a 
resolution  to  reform,  and  lately  kept  it,  I  expect  this 
Lothario  to  follow  my  example  and  begin  by  restoring  this 
girl  to  Society,  or,  by  the  beard  of  my  father,  he  shall  hear 
of  it." 


18 


Ill 

THE  STORY  OF  LADY  CAROLINE 
LAMB 


" Remember,  'midst  your  wooing, 

Love  has  bliss,  but  Love  has  ruing  ; 
Other  smiles  may  make  you  fickle, 
Tears  for  other  charms  may  trickle." 

Thomas  Campbell. 


'  Last  night,  when  some  one  spoke  his  name, 
From  my  swift  blood  that  went  and  came 
A  thousand  little  shafts  of  flame 
Were  shiver'd  in  my  narrow  frame." 

Tennyson. 


Ill 


The  Story  of  Lady  Caroline 
Lamb 


THE  five  years  intervening  between  Lord  Byron's 
arrival  in  England   after  his  first  tour  and  the 
final     leave-taking    of     England    witnessed    the 
famous  and  foolish  infatuation  for  Lady  Milbanke's  cousin, 
Lady  Caroline  Lamb. 

Byron  was  always  so  utterly  frank  in  stating  the  views 
he  took  of  a  man's  responsibilities  to  a  partner  in  gallantry 
that  the  patient  endeavour  of  so  many  of  his  biographers 
to  palliate  his  conduct  to  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  appears  to 
be  altogether  unnecessary.  "  I  own  I  feel  provoked,"  he 
wrote,  referring  to  some  of  the  wild  spirits  of  the  time, 
"  when  they  dignify  all  this  by  the  name  of  love,  romantic 
attachment  for  things  marketable  for  a  dollar."  Byron 
was  attracted  to  women  by  a  purely  animal  affinity ;  the 
freedom  and  voluptuous  ecstasy  with  which  in  his  letters 
and  journal  he  descants  on  their  physical  charms  is  sufficient 
proof  of  this.  In  the  affair  with  Lady  Caroline  Lamb, 
Byron  acted  just  precisely  as  any  one  else,  with  the  same 
headstrong  passions,  and  equally  vain  of  feminine  conquest, 
would  have  acted  towards  a  young,  beautiful,  and  impetuous 
creature  who  forced  herself  into  his  life.  There  are  a  few 

21 


The  Story  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb 

Josephs  but  many  Potiphar's  wives.  He  never  in  his  life 
turned  a  pleasure  from  his  path.  Indeed,  like  Don  Juan, 
he  would  have  accounted  a  man  a  great  fool  who  let  slip 
a  chance  of  an  intrigue  with  a  pretty  woman. 

It  is  plain,  too,  that  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  deliberately 
provoked  her  own  sufferings.  Her  conduct  was  the  reflec- 
tion of  a  wilful  and  capricious  nature,  and  an  imagination 
heated  by  a  course  of  vicious  French  novels.  When  a  mere 
girl,  she  wrote  a  foolish  novelette  treating  of  the  seduction 
of  a  beautiful  heroine  by  a  wicked  nobleman.  Her  school- 
mates nicknamed  her  "  Spite "  and  "  Young  Savage," 
and  when  she  entered  into  rivalry  with  her  own  cousin, 
Miss  Milbanke,  for  the  questionable  honour  of  Byron's 
affections,  the  lady  who  gained  the  day  referred  to  her  as 
a  piece  of  "  beautiful  silliness  "  and  "  fair-seeming  foolish- 
ness," both  of  which  epithets  were  emphatically  just. 
She  did  not  enter  into  the  intrigue  with  Byron  blindly 
ignorant  of  his  reputation.  Men  of  Byron's  stamp  require 
as  a  preliminary  to  any  serious  attachment  that  the  attrac- 
tions of  the  lady  shall  be  set  off  by  an  element  of  piquancy 
and  wilfulness.  Light  conquests  are  valued  least.  The 
prize  must  be  won  with  wrestling.  As  likely  as  not  Lady 
"  Caro  "  was  playing  a  part  when  she  deliberately  snubbed 
the  poet  at  Lady  Westmoreland's.  The  effect  of  her 
refusal  even  to  be  introduced  to  him  was  sufficient  to  touch 
the  vanity  of  Byron.  That  was  his  weakest  spot.  Hence- 
forth he  was  imbued  with  all  the  ardour  of  the  chase.  Few 
men  were  then  more  irresistible ;  for  Byron,  besides  being 
dangerously  beautiful,  as  a  woman  might  be  beautiful, 
managed  to  veil  his  real  character  by  an  affection  of  lofty 

22 


The  Story  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb 

grandeur,  and  to  simulate  a  passion  for  romance  and  senti- 
ment which  completely  fascinated  the  other  sex.  There 
is  a  famous  entry  which  Lady  Caroline  made  in  her  diary 
regarding  Byron  :  "  Mad,  bad,  and  dangerous  to  know." 
Yet  after  the  second  and  third  meeting  between  the  pair, 
they  were  the  very  best  of  friends.  In  one  of  her  first 
letters  to  the  poet,  she  compared  herself  to  the  passionate 
sunflower  which  awaits  for  the  condescending  sun  to  shine 
on  it.  She  offered  him  her  jewels.  She  ran  all  over 
London  after  him.  Her  extravagances  led  the  Duchess  of 
Devonshire  to  protest.  In  short,  she  outrivalled  in  hysterical 
Byromania  the  lusty  Venetian  who  later  on  threw  herself 
into  the  canal  to  please  her  lover. 

With  Byron  the  period  of  satiety  quickly  followed.  It 
is  not  surprising  to  find  him  rebuking  Lady  Caroline  some- 
what harshly  for  proposing  to  enter  his  apartment  in  the 
dress  of  a  page.  "  Every  word  you  utter,"  he  wrote, 
"  every  line  you  write  proves  you  to  be  either  sincere  or  a 
fool.  Now  as  I  know  you  are  not  the  one,  I  must  believe 
you  the  other."  Byron,  little  as  he  cared  ordinarily  for 
what  the  world  said,  was  in  no  mood  just  now  for  enduring 
the  scandal  which  would  follow  an  open  recognition  of  the 
relationship  existing  between  them.  He  declared  artlessly 
that  what  she  said  about  love  so  indiscreetly  and  with  such 
tiresome  iteration,  he  felt  acutely.  But  he  continued  to 
bear  with  the  lady's  eccentricities,  and  in  the  summer  of 
1812,  a  few  months  before  she  burned  his  effigy,  she  wrote  : 
"  How  very  pale  you  are !  "  anticipating  the  comment 
which  Byron,  years  afterwards,  said  he  wished  the  ladies 
to  make  on  his  personal  appearance.  "  I  never  see  you," 

23 


The  Story  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb 

she  continued,  in  the  same  hysterical  strain,  "  without 
wishing  to  cry ;  if  any  painter  could  paint  me  that  face  as 
it  is,  I  would  give  him  anything  I  possess  on  earth — not  one 
has  yet  given  the  countenance  and  complexion  as  it  is." 

Now  we  come  to  a  curious  development  in  this  amazing 
story.  Byron,  anxious  apparently  to  be  done  with  the 
business,  wrote  to  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  that  famous  letter 
which,  whilst  it  was  meant  to  be  a  last  farewell,  was  not  in 
the  least  calculated  to  produce  a  feeling  of  resignation  in 
the  breast  of  the  recipient : — 

"  God  knows,  I  never  knew  till  this  moment  the  madness  of  my 
dearest  and  most  beloved  friend.  I  cannot  express  myself — this  is 
no  time  for  words — but  I  shall  have  the  pride,  a  melancholy  pleasure, 
in  suffering  what  you  yourself  can  scarely  conceive,  for  you  do  not 
know  me.  I  am  about  to  go  out  with  a  heavy  heart,  for  my  appear- 
ing this  evening  will  stop  any  absurd  story  to  which  the  events  of 
the  day  might  give  rise.  Do  you  think  now  I  am  cold,  and  stern, 
and  wilful  ?  Will  ever  others  think  so  ?  Will  your  mother  ever  ? — 
that  mother  to  whom  we  must  indeed  sacrifice  much  more,  much 
more  on  my  part,  than  she  shall  ever  know  or  can  imagine.  '  Promise 
not  to  love  you  !  '  Ah,  Caroline,  it  is  past  promising  !  But  I  shall 
attribute  all  concessions  to  the  proper  motive  and  never  cease  to 
feel  all  that  you  have  already  witnessed,  and  more  than  ever  can  be 
known,  but  to  my  heart — perhaps  to  yours.  May  God  forgive, 
protect,  and  bless  you,  ever  and  ever,  more  and  more. — Yours  most 
attached, 

"  BYRON." 

Then  comes  that  enigmatical  postcript  containing  the 
significant  sentence  upsetting  everything  that  had  gone 
before  : — 

"  I  was,  and  am,  yours  freely  !  And  entirely  to  obey,  to  honour, 
to  love,  and  to  fly  with  you,  when,  where,  and  how  yourself  might 
and  may  determine." 

24 


The  Story  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb 

One  writer  has  said  that  the  only  intelligible  explanation 
of  this  curious  footnote  is  that  it  was  meant  as  a  concession 
to  the  lady's  feelings.  We  can  say  nothing  more  con- 
vincing, and  anything  less  is  hardly  possible.  But  the  mad 
infatuation  of  the  lady  was  proof  against  all  remonstrances. 
After  she  was  sent  away  to  Ireland,  a  course  of  persecution 
followed,  and  the  poet,  weary  of  the  connection,  wrote 
another  letter  of  dismissal,  commencing :  "  I  am  no 
longer  your  lover,"  and  containing  the  harsh  advice, 
"  correct  your  vanity,  which  is  ridiculous,  exert  your 
absurd  caprices  upon  others,  and  leave  me  in  peace."  The 
case  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  is  not  one  in  which  it  can  be 
truthfully  said  that  the  woman  was  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning.  She  played  into  Byron's  hands,  as  did  other 
women  with  less  opportunities  of  knowing  his  real  char- 
acter ;  and  she  paid  the  penalty. 

It  was  the  poet's  destiny  to  inspire  in  his  women,  with 
perhaps  the  notable  exception  of  Lady  Byron,  a  passionate 
worship  which  counted  as  nought  honour,  the  world,  regard 
of  friends,  and  everything  beside  its  object,  and  which, 
moreover,  endured  to  the  end  of  the  story. 

Through  bitterness  and  contempt,  in  the  frenzy  of  her 
rage  and  disappointment  with  Byron,  when  she  burned  his 
effigy,  and  spoke  an  address  over  the  flames,  "  Caro's  " 
heart  belied  her  speech.  One  word  from  the  poet  would 
have  brought  her  to  his  side.  The  rose  and  carnation  he 
gave  her  a  few  days  after  their  first  meeting  she  bedewed 
with  tears,  and  cherished  as  precious  souvenirs  of  happier 
days.  When  by  a  dramatic  coincidence  she  met  the 
funeral  of  her  lover  on  its  way  to  Newstead  Abbey,  she  was 

25 


The  Story  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb 

overcome  with  grief,  and  wrote :  "  I  am  very  sorry  I 
ever  said  one  unkind  word  against  him."  To  Medwin  she 
declared,  "  He  broke  my  heart,  and  still  I  love  him." 

Of  all  Byron's  women,  this  poor  "  soiled  queen  of  society  " 
suffered  the  most  at  his  hands.  Lady  Byron,  who  was 
made  of  sterner  stuff,  could  separate  herself  from  her  hus- 
band from  a  sense  of  duty  and  self-respect.  But  Lady 
Caroline  Lamb,  knowing  the  worst  that  was  to  be  known 
against  the  poet,  continued  to  give  him  all  her  love  and 
worship,  and  in  a  pathetic  last  letter  shed  tears  of  joy  over 
a  book  in  which  her  name  was  coupled  with  Byron's  to  the 
shame  of  them  both. 


26 


IV 
BYRON   AND   HIS    WIFE 


"  Can  you  keep  the  bee  from  ranging, 
Or  the  ringdove's  neck  from  changing  ? 
No  !    Nor  fetter 'd  Love  from  dying 
In  the  knot  there's  no  untying." 

Thomas  Campbell. 


"  That  man  that  hath  a  tongue,  I  say,  is  no  man, 
If  with  his  tongue  he  cannot  win  a  woman." 

"  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona." 


"  When  Love  is  once  dead 

Who  shall  awake  him  ? 
Bitter  our  bread 
When  Love  is  once  dead 
His  comforts  are  fled, 

His  favours  forsake  him. 
When  Love  is  once  dead 

Who  shall  awake  him  ?  " 

Arthur  Symons. 


IV 

Byron  and  his  Wife 


LORD  BYRON'S  engagement  to  Miss  Milbanke 
after  two  proposals,  and  his  subsequent  marriage, 
have  been  handled  from  every  point  of  view  by 
many  ingenious  writers  who  delight  to  fish  in  troubled 
waters.  It  is  an  absolutely  hopeless  task  to  attempt 
to  disentangle  the  fact  from  the  fiction  in  this  remarkable 
story.  Byron  had  so  accustomed  the  world  to  hearing  all 
the  details  of  his  private  and  domestic  life,  his  intrigues, 
his  debts,  his  mad  dissipations,  that  when  the  separatipn 
from  his  wife  took  place,  there  was  a  ready  market  for  the 
most  scandalous  inventions  and  the  most  cruel  and  un- 
founded gossip.  Every  scrap  of  information  on  the  subject 
found  its  way  into  print.  There  were  charges  and  counter- 
charges ;  books  by  Byron's  friends  and  by  the  enemies  of 
Byron  who  were  the  friends  of  his  wife ;  mysterious 
theories ;  exculpations ;  and  the  like.  No  such  interest 
has  been  manifested  in  the  domestic  infelicities  of  any 
man  save  Nelson. 

Medwin  records  his  hero  as  saying  that  he  proposed  to 
his  wife  on  a  mad  impulse,  and  she  accepted  him  because 
he  was  the  fashion.  Lord  Byron's  friends  declare  it  was 
her  fortune  that  attracted  him  ;  and  Leigh  Hunt,  who 

29 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


could  not  conceive  Byron  playing  any  other  role  than  that 
of  a  profligate  where  women  were  concerned,  says  we  may 
take  it  for  granted  that  Byron  had  never  known  anything 
of  love  but  the  animal  passion.  He  certainly  did  not 
marry  to  be  rid  of  Lady  Caroline  Lamb,  or  to  satisfy  the 
match-making  proclivities  of  Lady  Melbourne.  Byron 
would  never  have  retreated  from  an  awkward  situation  in 
so  cowardly  a  fashion,  and  his  vanity  would  have  forbidden 
the  other  alternative.  His  views  of  women  and  matrimony 
were  frankly  those  of  a  cynic  to  whom  there  was  nothing 
sacred  in  the  subject.  Like  Burns,  he  had  an  amazing 
lack  of  reverence  for  women.  The  creations  of  his  poems, 
his  Medras,  his  Myrahs,  and  his  Haidees  were  all  cast  in 
the  same  mould  ;  soft,  voluptuous  creatures,  evanescent  as 
sunbeams,  and  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  love.  Wherever 
he  travelled,  under  the  Spanish  skies,  on  the  coast  of  the 
Adriatic,  in  the  Grecian  Archipelago,  or  amongst  the  ruins 
of  ancient  Rome,  he  fashioned  out  of  his  fancy  the  same 
saccharine  type  of  womanhood,  a  bundle  of  passions  and 
vanities,  to  be  cast  aside  at  her  lord's  pleasure  like  a  soiled 
glove.  He  hated  an  "  esprit  in  petticoats,"  but  he  owned 
to  admiring  Madame  de  Stael,  who  declared  that  she  would 
have  given  anything  to  have  been  in  Lady  Byron's  place. 
He  was  flippant  and  profane  over  the  realities  of  life ; 
marriage  he  considered  to  be  an  agreeable  change,  a  new 
sensation  to  drive  away  the  ennui  from  which  he  eternally 
suffered,  but  bringing  with  it  few,  if  any,  responsibilities, 
and  imposing  no  restraints.  Love,  he  argued,  need  not 
enter  into  the  matter  at  all. 

"  If  I  love  (he  soliloquised  in  his  journal  at  the  time  he 

30 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


was  looking  out  for  a  wife)  I  shall  be  jealous,  and  for  that 
reason  I  will  not  be  in  love."  Again,  when  Moore  sug- 
gested marriage  to  him,  Byron  writes  :  "  I  can  conceive 
nothing  more  delightful  than  such  a  state  in  the  country, 
reading  the  country  newspaper,  etc.,  and  kissing  one's  wife's 
maid."  He  is  never  serious.  Women  are  a  theme  for  a 
jest  or  a  mark  for  his  scorn.  Yet  in  his  perverse  way  he 
asked  of  Medwin,  after  the  success  of  "  The  Corsair," 
"  Don't  we  all  write  for  them  ?  "  The  melancholy  and 
picturesque  poseur  became  a  hero  and  the  fashion.  Out 
of  his  poems  impressionable  females  conjured  up  the  ideal 
of  their  dreams — a  mixture  of  beauty  and  chivalry.  That 
was  Byron's  highest  ambition.  In  spite  of  his  contemptu- 
ous references  to  the  sex,  he  was  jealous  of  their  admira- 
tion. He  was  always,  as  Leigh  Hunt  described  him,  "  the 
lion  of  the  perfumed  locks,"  conscious  of  his  Grecian  beauty 
and  wearing  an  aspect  of  picturesque  melancholy.  When 
he  sat  for  his  bust,  and  after  it  was  finished,  he  remarked 
to  the  sculptor,  "  It  is  not  like  me  ;  my  expression  is  more 
unhappy  "  ;  and  the  artist  who  painted  his  picture  declared 
that  he  looked  as  if  he  were  thinking  of  a  frontispiece  for 
"  Childe  Harold."  To  Lord  Sligo  he  avowed  he  would 
like  to  die  of  consumption  so  the  ladies  might  say,  "  See 
that  poor  Byron,  how  interesting  he  looks  in  dying  !  " 

It  is,  indeed,  difficult  to  get  at  the  heart  of  such  a  bundle 
of  unrealities.  When  he  became  engaged  to  Miss  Milbanke, 
he  wrote  that  lady  one  or  two  letters  marked  by  manliness 
and  sincerity ;  but  for  the  most  part  he  was  the  same 
vain,  wilful,  and  perverse  creature  he  remained  to  the  end. 
He  tumbled  into  matrimony,  as  it  were,  by  accident.  Miss 

31 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


Milbanke  was  a  young  lady  of  fortune  and  a  recognised 
beauty,  who  moved  in  the  same  circle  as  Lady  Caroline 
Lamb,  without  imitating  that  lady's  follies  and  extra- 
vagances. Byron  had  been  urged  to  marry — to  quote  the 
words  of  Moore — because  marriage  would  be  likely  to 
prove  "  a  timely  refuge  from  those  perplexities  which  form 
the  sequel  of  all  less  regular  ties."  Truly  a  remarkable 
reason,  and  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  sentiments  ex- 
pressed on  the  subject  by  Byron  himself,  is  there  any  cause 
for  wonder  that  the  marriage  brought  about  exactly  the 
opposite  result  ?  Miss  Milbanke  refused  Byron's  first  offer, 
but  agreed  to  maintain  a  correspondence  with  him.  It  was 
shortly  after  this  that  Byron  observed  in  his  Journal : — 

"  Yesterday  a  very  pretty  letter  from  Annabella,  which  I  answered. 
What  an  odd  situation  and  friendship  is  ours  !  Without  one  spark 
of  love  on  either  side,  and  produced  by  circumstances  which  in 
general  lead  to  coldness  on  one  side  and  aversion  on  the  other.  She 
is  a  very  superior  woman,  and  very  little  spoiled,  which  is  strange 
in  an  heiress,  a  girl  of  twenty — a  peeress  that  is  to  be  in  her  own 
right — an  only  child  and  a  savante,  who  has  always  had  her  own 
way.  She  is  a  poetess,  a  mathematician,  a  metaphysician,  and  yet 
withal  very  kind,  and  gentle  with  very  little  pretension.  Any 
other  head  would  be  turned  with  half  her  acquisitions  and  a  tenth 
part  of  her  advantages." 

Now  we  come  to  that  remarkable  correspondence  in  which 
Byron  freely  and  frankly  wrote  about  himself  and  his  own 
life.  How  far  his  real  feelings  were  reflected  in  what  he 
wrote,  and  to  what  extent  they  were  tinged  with  that 
romantic  melancholy  he  affected  so  much  in  his  dealings 
with  women,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  He  confesses  in  one 
of  his  letters  that  he  is  "  an  awkward  dissembler,"  yet  no 

32 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


poet  has  given  the  world  so  much  trouble  in  deciding  what 
is  false  and  what  is  genuine  sentiment  in  his  writings.  In 
these  letters  he  poses  as  a  melancholy  cynic,  sick  of  men  and 
women,  and  especially  of  poets,  and  continuing  to  exist 
only  for  some  new  sensation  to  fill  the  "  craving  void  " 
which  he  feels  in  his  heart.  His  cup  has  long  been  filled 
to  the  brim  with  bitterness,  or  the  refusal  of  Lady  Milbanke, 
"  the  one  woman  he  preferred  to  all  others,"  to  become  his 
wife  might  have  made  him  miserable.  How  ingeniously 
he  maintains  that  his  own  self-love  has  not  been  wounded 
by  the  rejection,  and  secures  at  the  same  time  the  sym- 
pathy of  the  lady,  is  shown  by  this  extract : — 

"  I  feel  a  kind  of  pride  even  in  your  rejection,  more  than  I  believe 
I  could  derive  from  the  attachment  of  another,  for  it  reminds  me 
that  once  I  thought  myself  worthy  of  the  affection  of  almost  the 
only  one  of  your  sex  I  ever  truly  respected." 

Miss  Milbanke  was  soon  fascinated  by  the  easy-going 
philosophy  of  the  poet.  He  confessed  to  her  that  he  was 
proud  of  any  good  deed  he  might  have  blundered  into, 
simply  because  it  proved  that  she  had  not  heard  him 
invariably  spoken  ill  of. 

At  length  he  took  it  into  his  head  to  propose  a  second 
time,  and  was  accepted.  The  cold  and  desultory  method 
of  his  wooing,  the  haphazard  fashion  in  which  he  finally 
put  the  question,  and  his  strange  behaviour  before  and 
after  the  ceremony  constitute  together  one  of  the  most 
amazing  episodes  in  his  remarkable  career.  I  have  said 
he  slipped  into  matrimony  by  accident.  On  the  I5th  of 
September,  1814,  he  wrote  to  Moore  :  "  To-morrow  I  shall 
know  whether  a  circumstance  of  importance  enough  to 
D  33 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


change  many  of  my  plans  will  occur  or  not."  The  "  event 
of  importance  "  was  a  marriage,  but  with  whom  it  appears 
he  had  not  decided.  He  discussed  the  question  with  a 
friend,  who  suggested  a  certain  lady  of  fortune  instead  of 
Miss  Milbanke.  The  friend  drew  up  a  proposal,  which 
provoked  a  refusal.  "  You  see,"  said  Byron,  "  that  after 
all  Miss  Milbanke  is  to  be  the  person ;  I  will  write  to  her." 
Then,  without  more  ado,  Byron  coolly  drafted  out  his 
second  letter  of  proposal,  and  passed  it  over  to  the  friend. 
The  story  goes  that  the  friend  continued  to  expostulate 
until  he  picked  up  the  letter  and  read  it  over.  "  Well 
really,"  he  declared,  "  this  is  a  very  pretty  letter.  It  is  a 
pity  it  should  not  go  ;  I  never  read  a  prettier  one."  "  Then 
it  shall  go,"  answered  Byron  ;  and  a  question  of  such 
supreme  importance  to  most  young  lovers  was  disposed 
of  by  a  compliment. 

A  circumstance  of  some  interest,  as  revealing  Byron's 
attitude  towards  marriage,  is  that  he  had  contracted  two 
bets  of  one  hundred  guineas  to  one,  and  fifty  guineas  to 
one,  that  he  would  never  marry.  One  of  these  bets 
was  actually  concluded  the  day  before  he  despatched 
the  letter  of  proposal,  and  to  Medwin  he  afterwards  con- 
fessed, "  The  day  before  I  proposed  to  Lady  Byron  I  had 
no  idea  of  doing  so." 

During  the  eight  months  intervening  between  the  accep~ 
tance  and  the  marriage,  Byron  was  writing  flattering 
descriptions  of  his  future  wife  to  Moore  and  his  friends, 
and  making  promise  of  reform  to  the  lady  herself.  He 
hunted  up  the  old  letter  of  rejection  from  Miss  Milbanke 
and  thus  commented  on  it : 

34 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


"  In  arranging  papers  I  have  found  the  first  letter  you  ever  wrote 
to  me — read  it  again.  You  will  allow  mine  appeared  to  be  a  very 
unpromising  case,  but  I  can  forgive — that  is  not  the  word — I  mean  I 
can  forget  even  the  reality  of  your  sentiments  then,  if  you  do  not 
deceive  yourself  now.  It  was  the  epistle  to  which  I  have  recurred 
which  haunted  me  through  all  my  future  correspondence  ;  and  now 
farewell  to  it — and  yet  your  friendship  was  dearer  to  me  than  any 
love  but  your  own." 

Byron  was  perfectly  right.  A  more  unpromising  candi- 
date for  matrimony  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  find. 
He  was  vain  and  impatient  of  control.  He  had  seen  the 
worst  side  of  women  from  his  youth  upwards,  and  his 
love  of  intrigue  had  brought  him  into  conflict  even  with 
the  family  of  his  fiancee.  For  the  moment,  however, 
he  had  been  captivated  by  the  cold  beauty  and  simple 
unaffected  nature  of  Miss  Milbanke,  and  he  was  enthusi- 
astic in  her  praises.  He  wrote  to  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance 
soon  after  the  affair  was  settled  :  "  She  has  no  fault  except 
being  a  great  deal  too  good  for  me,"  and  in  letters  to  Moore 
we  find  frequent  expressions  of  the  same  sentiments : 
"  She  is  too  good  a  person  that — that — in  short,  I  wish  I 
was  a  better  "  ;  "  My  wife-elect  is  perfection  and  I  hear 
of  nothing  but  her  merits  and  her  wonders,  and  that  she 
is  very  pretty  "  ;  "  She  is  a  kind  of  pattern  in  the  North," 
and  so  on. 

In  his  love-making  with  Miss  Milbanke,  Byron  was  no 
longer  the  dark  and  melancholy  iconoclast,  the  perverse 
cynic  upon  whom,  as  Macaulay  said,  "  the  freshness  of  the 
heart  ceased  to  fall  like  dew."  He  could  write  tender, 
human  letters,  with  a  biting  wit,  but  inspired  apparently 
by  the  deepest  and  the  purest  emotions.  There  are  two 

35 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


letters  of  this  kind  to  which  even  the  harshest  critic  of  the 
poet  will  probably  not  deny  the  quality  of  manliness. 
"  The  truth  is,"  he  wrote  to  Miss  Milbanke,  "  that  could 
I  have  foreseen  that  your  life  was  to  be  linked  to  mine — 
had  I  even  possessed  a  distinct  hope,  however  distant — 
I  would  have  been  a  different  and  better  being.  As  it  is, 
I  have  sometimes  doubts  even  if  I  should  not  disappoint 
the  future  nor  act  hereafter  unworthily  of  you,  whether 
the  past  ought  not  to  make  you  still  reject  me,  even  that 
portion  of  it  with  which  you  are  not  unacquainted.  I  did 
not  believe  such  a  woman  existed — at  least  for  me — and  I 
sometimes  fear  I  ought  to  wish  that  she  did  not.  I  must 
turn  from  the  subject." 

Once  more  is  the  postscript  in  one  of  Lord  Byron's  letters 
the  most  significant  part  of  it : — 

"  I  have  nothing  to  desire — nothing  I  would  see  altered  in  you, 
but  so  much  in  myself.  I  can  conceive  no  misery  equal  to  mine, 
if  I  failed  in  making  you  happy,  and  yet,  how  can  I  hope  to  do 
justice  to  those  merits,  for  whose  praise  there  is  not  a  dissentient 
voice  ?  " 

I  know  of  nothing  in  the  mass  of  Byron  literature  which 
tends  in  the  least  degree  to  support  the  theory  that  the 
poet's  marriage  was  doomed  to  failure  from  the  first — 
this  is,  of  course,  assuming  that  Byron  redeemed  his 
promises  of  reform.  Two  months  after  the  event  he  wrote 
to  Moore  :  "  I  think  still  one  ought  to  marry  upon  lease, 
but  am  very  sure  I  should  renew  mine  at  the  expiration, 
though  next  term  for  ninety  and  nine  years." 

It  was  long  afterwards,  when  the  breach  between  him- 
self and  his  wife  had  hopelessly  widened,  that  Byron 

36 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


related  how  a  remarkable  conjunction  of  ill-omens  had 
served  to  emphasise  the  feeling  in  his  own  mind  that  the 
step  he  was  taking  was  a  rash  and  foolish  one.  The  iron 
had  entered  into  his  soul  when  he  told  Medwin,  amongst 
other  foolish  things,  that  Lady  Byron  never  loved  him, 
and  married  him  because  he  was  the  fashion.  The  disen- 
chantment was  complete.  He  allowed  his  illusive  fancy 
to  play  all  manner  of  tricks  with  truth,  and  whilst  much  of 
what  he  said  was  inspired  by  momentary  fits  of  ill-feeling 
against  Lady  Byron,  there  lay  at  the  root  of  it  all  that 
vain  love  of  glamour,  of  theatrical  effect,  which  was  such 
a  marked  weakness  of  his  character. 

We  may  pass  over  the  numberless  theories  advanced 
both  by  the  friends  and  the  enemies  of  Byron  to  account 
for  the  rupture  between  the  poet  and  his  wife.  Lady 
Byron  does  not  come  out  of  the  ordeal  very  well.  In 
spite  of  what  she  suffered  at  the  hands  of  her  husband,  it 
is  to  be  regretted  that  after  his  death  she  should  have 
broken  a  silence  preserved  so  proudly  during  his  lifetime. 
On  the  whole  Byron  was  fairly  just  to  her  after  the  separa- 
tion. There  is  that  explicit  declaration  to  Moore  that : — 

"  I  don't  believe  there  was  ever  a  better,  or  even  a  brighter,  a 

kinder,  or  a  more  amiable  and  agreeable  being  than  Lady  B .     I 

never  had,  nor  can  have  any  reproach  to  make  against  her  while 
with  me.  Where  there  is  blame  it  belongs  to  myself,  and  if  I  cannot 
redeem  it " 

and  again  to  Rogers  he  wrote  : — 

"  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  say  to  me  at  once  whether  you 
ever  heard  me  speak  of  her  with  disrespect,  with  unkindness,  or 

37 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


defend  myself  at  her  expense  by  any  serious  imputation  of  any 
description  against  her  ?  Did  you  ever  hear  me  say  that  when  there 
was  a  right  and  a  wrong  she  had  the  right  ?  " 

It  is  true  that  we  have  as  a  set-off  to  this  vindication  of 
Lady  Byron,  some  half-dozen  petulant  and  characteristically 
irresponsible  rhymes  in  which  the  lady  is  held  up  to  derision. 
For  instance,  we  know  that  he  endorsed  the  deed  of  separa- 
tion : — 

"A  year  ago,  you  swore,  fond  she, 
To  love  to  honour,  and  so  forth. 
Such  was  the  vow  you  pledged  to  me. 
And  here's  exactly  what  its  worth." 

In  the  first  Canto  of  "  Don  Juan,"  Lady  Byron  is  clearly 
identified  with  Inez,  who — 

"  Called  some  druggists  and  physicians, 
And  tried  to  prove  her  loving  lord  was  mad ; 
But  as  he  had  some  lucid  intermissions, 
She  next  decided  he  was  only  bad." 

These  few  examples  of  mischievous  verse-making  count 
for  nought  against  the  frank  and  spontaneous  admission 
that  Lady  Byron  was  not  to  blame  for  the  separation.  It 
was  when  it  appeared  that  reconciliation  was  hopeless 
that  Byron  the  fatalist,  the  poseur,  evolved  a  budget  of 
superstitious  fancies  regarding  his  marriage  which  have 
been  faithfully  set  down  in  Medwin's  conversations. 

Let  us  take  them  in  order :  (i)  it  had  been  predicted  by 
Mrs.  Williams,  the  gipsy,  that  twenty-seven  was  to  be  a 
dangerous  age  for  the  poet ;  (2)  at  the  altar  he  trembled 
like  a  leaf,  and  made  the  wrong  responses  ;  (3)  an  ill-omen 
was  the  placing  of  a  lady's  maid  between  Byron  and  his 

38 


Byron  and  his  Wife 


wife  in  the  carriage  which  took  them  from  the  church ; 
(4)  a  horror  of  matrimony  came  over  Byron  at  the  wedding  ; 
and  (5)  he  gave  Lady  Byron  a  ring  which  belonged  to  his 
mother,  who  had  married  so  ill.  How  many  of  these 
experiences  are  common  to  the  average  bridegroom  it  is 
needless  to  inquire ;  that  they  should  have  been  thought 
worthy  of  preservation  in  serious  biography  is  ample  proof 
of  the  interest  aroused  by  every  fragment  of  gossip  about 
his  unhappy  affairs. 


39 


V 
BURNS:     THE   RUSTIC   GALLANT 


'  Love  is  a  swallow 

Flitting  with  spring  : 
Though  we  would  follow, 
Love  is  a  swallow, 
All  his  vows  hollow ; 
Then  let  us  sing. 
Love  is  a  swallow 

Flitting  with  spring." 

Arthur  Symons. 


"  My  lyre  I  tune,  my  voice  I  raise, 
And  with  my  numbers  mix  my  sighs  ; 
And  whilst  I  sing  Euphelia's  praise, 
I  fix  my  soul  on  Cloe's  eyes. 

"Fair  Cloe  blush' d  :    Euphelia  frown' d; 
I  sang  and  gazed ;    I  play'd,  and  trembled ; 
And  Venus  to  the  Loves  around 
Remark'd  how  ill  we  all  dissembled." 

Matthew  Prior. 


'  I  did  but  look  and  love  a-while, 
'Twas  but  for  one  half-hour ; 
Then  to  resist  I  had  no  will, 
And  now  I  have  no  power." 

Thomas  Otway. 


V 

Burns:   the  Rustic  Gallant 


IT  was  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  who  once  said  that 
every  young  poet  was  a  lover  to  begin  with. 
Robert  Burns  fulfilled  this  saying  in  its  most  literal 
sense.  "  For  my  own  part,"  he  wrote,  "  I  never  had 
the  least  thought  or  inclination  of  turning  poet  until 
I  once  got  heartily  in  love,  and  then  rhyme  and  song  were, 
in  the  manner,  the  spontaneous  language  of  my  heart," 
or  again,  in  reference  to  Nellie  Fitzpatrick,  "  thus  with  me 
began  love  and  poetry,  which  at  all  times  have  been  my 
only,  and  till  within  the  last  twelve  months,  have  been 
my  highest  enjoyment."  Burns  is  not  the  first  of  the 
world's  great  poets  whose  finest  songs  are  wrought  in  the 
language  of  love.  Petrarch  and  Dante,  Shakespeare  and 
Pope,  are  names  that  stand  out  in  the  line  of  succession, 
and  Cowley,  in  his  preface  to  the  "  Mistress,"  declares  that 
poets  are  scarcely  thought  freemen  of  their  country  without 
paying  some  duties  or  obliging  themselves  to  be  true  to 
love. 

Burns,  before  he  had  reached  his  twenty-sixth  year, 
had  flooded  Ayrshire  with  love  and  poetry.  But  he  was 
no  theorist,  who  made  love  on  paper.  His  passion  was 
never  simulated ;  he  was  "  a  very  beadle  to  a  humorous 

43 


Burns  :    the  Rustic  Gallant 


sigh,"  and  he  translated  into  his  poems  an  intensity  of 
feeling  and  an  amorous  exaltation  which  had  had  their 
counterpart  in  his  own  life. 

Some  of  the  finest,  and  by  far  the  greatest  quantity  of 
his  verse,  was  written  in  honour  of  that  long  roll  of  white 
rose  and  red  rose  loves,  beginning  with  Nellie  Fitzpatrick 
and  ending  with  Jessie  Lewars.  Excepting  for  a  brief 
period,  he  was,  to  quote  his  brother  Gilbert's  words,  "  con- 
stantly the  victim  of  some  fair  enslaver  "  ;  and  alas  for  the 
moralists,  he  loved  not  wisely  but  too  well.  Over  and 
over  again  he  set  out,  to  employ  his  own  phrase,  "  to  batter 
himself  into  an  affection."  His  muse  would  only  respond 
on  the  inspiration  of  "  a  fine  woman."  His  writings  abound 
in  proofs  of  this.  "  My  heart,"  he  confesses,  "  was  com- 
pletely tinder,  and  eternally  lighted  up  by  some  goddess 
or  other."  "  Woman,"  he  said  on  another  occasion,  "  is 
one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  Nature's  workmanship  "  ;  and 
to  Alexander  Cunningham  he  declared,  "  Love  is  the  Alpha 
and  Omega  of  human  enjoyment,  all  the  pleasures,  all  the 
happiness  of  my  humble  compeers  flow  immediately  and 
directly  from  this  delicious  source."  Burns' s  philosophy 
of  life  is,  in  short,  summed  up  in  those  lines  from  "  Green 
Grow  the  Rashes  "  : — 

"  What  signifies  the  life  o'  man, 
An'  't  wer  na'  for  the  lassies  o'." 

At  eighteen  Burns  was  the  picturesque  ballad-maker, 
the  finest  letter-writer  and  the  first  of  Tarbolton  gallants, 
the  only  man  who  wore  tied  hair,  and  a  fille-mot  plaid. 
He  always  dressed  for  the  part  of  the  lover.  His  coat  and 
vest  were  Scotch  tweed  of  the  best,  and  he  once  boasted 

44 


Burns  :    the  Rustic  Gallant 


that  he  had  two  pair  of  breeks  and  stockings,  and  pumps, 
and  five  new  shirts. 

There  was  a  time  when  he  lamented  his  inability  to  make 
progress  with  the  other  sex.  But  after  a  term  at  the 
dancing-school  and  a  little  tuition  from  his  fellows  he  became 
the  most  plausible  amorist  of  them  all.  David  Sillar  was 
afterwards  struck  by  Burns's  "  facility  in  addressing  the 
fair  sex,"  and  adds  that  "  many  times  when  I  have  been 
bashfully  anxious  how  to  express  myself,  he  would  have 
entered  into  conversation  with  them  with  the  greatest 
ease  and  freedom,  and  it  was  generally  a  deathblow  to  our 
conversation,  however  agreeable,  to  meet  a  female  acquaint- 
ance." In  fact,  this  rustic  Lothario  carried  the  lassies  of 
Tarbolton  off  their  feet  with  the  same  ease  that  he  sub- 
sequently charmed  the  Duchess  of  Gordon  and  fascinated 
Clarinda.  Where  Burns  threw  his  pocket-handkerchief, 
there  were  plenty  of  lassies  ready  and  willing  to  pick  it  up. 
Once  he  set  out  on  a  conquest  there  were  no  half  measures 
about  him  ;  he  soared  into  the  language  of  superlatives, 
the  lady  became  a  divinity  without  whose  affection  life 
became  barren  and  grey. 

What  a  task  to  run  through  the  list  of  Burns's  loves  who 
were  thus  exalted  to  perfection  and  made  peerless  through 
the  medium  of  his  song  !  Ellison  Begbie  warmed  his  heart 
so  that  "  every  feeling  of  humanity,  every  principle  of 
generosity,  kindled  in  his  breast  "  ;  handsome  Nell  had  no 
rival,  she  was  "  the  gust  o'  joy,  the  balm  o'  woe  "  ;  Chloris 
was  "  the  peerless  Queen  of  womankind  "  ;  and  of  Peggy 
Chalmers,  he  said  her  name  was  registered  in  his  "  heart's 
core."  Burns  had  a  handsome  presence,  a  pretty  wit, 

45 


Burns  :    the  Rustic  Gallant 


and  a  reckless  and  fascinating  personality  which  bore  down 
all  opposition.  He  was  never  the  lover  who  went  on  his 
knees.  He  wooed  in  a  whirlwind  of  passion,  and  so  infected 
the  object  of  his  desire  that  she  drifted  unconsciously  into 
his  arms.  Sometimes  there  was  a  little  resistance ;  but  the 
poet  laid  his  siege  so  thoroughly  that  the  lady's  heart,  to 
use  his  own  words,  usually  "  came  down  pop  to  his  feet 
like  Corporal  Trim's  hat." 

This  success  was  the  result  of  long  experience  in  the  arts 
of  courtship.  In  the  idyllic  days  at  Mount  Oliphant,  when 
he  wooed  Nellie  Fitzpatrick  and  proposed  to  Ellison  Begbie, 
he  was  the  chaste  and  genuinely  serious  lover.  Afterwards 
he  made  a  sport  and  plaything  of  love  and  sank  into  a 
common  gallant.  What  a  delightful  description  he  gives 
in  his  own  autobiographical  letter  of  his  sweethearting  in 
his  father's  harvest  field  !  No  wonder  that  Clarinda  wrote 
him  years  afterwards  :  "  The  description  of  your  first  love- 
scene  delighted  me."  So  it  must  delight  any  one  who 
reads  it. 

The  morals  of  the  Scottish  peasantry  were  not  improved 
by  the  customs  of  courtship  which  prevailed  at  the  time. 
The  young  farm-hands  would  travel  many  miles  at  the 
close  of  a  hard  day's  work  for  the  sake  of  an  hour  or  two 
in  the  company  of  their  sweethearts.  As  often  as  not,  they 
sat  out  in  the  barn,  or  spent  their  time  rambling  along  the 
banks  of  the  Ayr.  These  meetings  have  been  celebrated 
by  Burns  in  many  of  his  poems,  including  "  The  Rigs  o' 
Barley  "  and  "  My  Nanny  O,"  in  which  occur  the  lines  : — 

"  But  I'll  get  my  plaid  an'  out  I'll  steal, 
An'  owre  the  hills  to  Nanny  O." 
46 


Burns  :    the  Rustic  Gallant 


The  "  black  books  "  of  the  Kirk  furnish  some  evidence  of 
the  unhappy  side  of  these  rural  courtships.  Elizabeth 
Paton  was  one  of  the  first  partners  of  Burns  in  these  phil- 
andering expeditions,  and  when  she  bore  him  a  child,  he 
wrote  the  famous  welcome  to  it  commencing : — 

"  Thou's  welcome  wean  1    Mishanter  fa'  me." 

Whilst  living  at  Tarbolton,  Burns  allowed  his  uncon- 
trolled passions  to  have  full  sway,  and  it  is  the  testimony 
of  his  brother  Gilbert  that  "  his  agitation  of  mind  and  body 
exceeded  anything  of  the  kind  in  real  life."  If  Burns  had 
not  been  a  consummate  actor,  and  so  fond  of  tearing  a 
passion  to  tatters,  it  would  be  easier  to  believe  that  the 
anguish  expressed  in  the  letters  he  wrote  after  the  trouble 
with  Jean  Armour  was  absolute  proof  of  Gilbert's  state- 
ment. But  whenever  Burns  was  crossed  in  love,  he  became 
the  most  miserable  being  on  earth,  and  wrote  letters  to  his 
friends  so  extravagantly  pessimistic  that  they  provoke 
laughter.  This  in  his  own  words  was  the  state  of  his 
mind  when  Mason  Armour  tore  up  the  marriage  contract 
between  his  daughter  and  the  poet :  "  I  reprobated  the 
first  moment  of  my  existence,  execrated  Adam's  folly,  his 
infatuated  wish  for  that  goodly-looking  but  poisonous 
besetting  gift  which  had  ruined  him  and  undone  me,  and 
called  on  the  womb  of  uncreated  night  to  close  over  me  and 
all  my  sorrows."  Burns  here  pictures  his  misery  in  April, 
1786.  Within  a  month  of  that  time  he  was  consoling  him- 
self with  Highland  Mary. 

This   is  not   an  isolated   instance  of  his   inconstancy. 
When  Clarinda  returned  to  Europe,  after  visiting  her  hus- 

47 


Burns :    the  Rustic  Gallant 


band  in  the  West  Indies,  and  Burns  was  then  married  to 
Jean,  he  wrote  deploring  himself  as  a  "  broken  wretch," 
declaring  that  "  ruined  peace,  wounded  pride,  and  frantic 
disappointed  passion  "  were  among  the  ills  of  his  life.  He 
had  always  the  same  eternal  cure  for  his  passion-torn  heart ; 
he  set  out  to  seek  a  new  love.  Nobody  must  make  the 
mistake  of  sympathising  with  Burns  on  the  vicissitudes  of 
his  amorous  career.  He  was  born  lusty  and  amorous.  The 
glory  of  his  existence  lay  in  his  eternal  propensity  for 
falling  in  love.  Who  can  recall  without  a  smile  his  concern 
during  the  Highland  tour  lest  he  had  ruined  this  one  source 
of  happiness,  and  was  in  danger  of  falling  a  victim  to  a  sur- 
feit of  passion.  He  composed  a  song  on  a  writ  served  on 
him  in  respect  of  provision  for  May  Cameron,  by  whom 
he  had  an  illegitimate  child.  There  was  no  hypocritical 
pretence  of  virtue  about  him.  He  went  up  to  the  Kirk 
and  did  penance  for  incontinency — and  then  repeated  the 
offence.  He  knew  his  own  shortcomings,  and  he  tried 
honestly  once  or  twice  to  be  strictly  moral,  but  the 
"  damned  star  "  wheeled  about  to  the  zenith,  and  it  was 
all  over  with  him.  He  often  quotes  that  passage  from 
Young : — 

"On  reason  build  resolve, 
That  column  of  true  majesty  in  man." 

It  occurs  quite  half  a  dozen  times  in  his  letters,  and  yet 
the  man  who  knew  so  well  the  folly  of  his  ways  was  to  the 
end  of  his  life  tossed  helplessly  in  a  sea  of  passion. 


48 


VI 

THE  STORY   OF    "BONNIE  JEAN" 
AND   OTHER    MATTERS 


"  O  shade  of  Burns,  if  thou  art  looking  on. 
If  laughter  visits  the  Plutonian  shore, 
Then  thou  wilt  laugh  what  Time  for  thee  has  won  : 
Those  easy  virtues  which  the  '  unco  '  wore. 

"  Ah,  no  !    thy  merit  was  not  being  good  ; 
Thou  Heaven  didst  hazard  for  a  woman's  e'e." 

A.  T. 


"  One  woman  is  fair  ;  yet  I  am  well :  another  is  wise  ;  yet  I  am 
well :  another  virtuous ;  yet  I  am  well :  but  till  all  graces  be  in  one 
woman,  one  woman  shall  not  come  in  my  grace.  Rich  she  shall  be, 
that's  certain ;  wise,  or  I'll  none ;  virtuous,  or  I'll  cheapen  her  ; 
fair,  or  I'll  never  look  on  her  ;  mild,  or  come  not  near  me ;  noble, 
or  not  I  for  an  angel ;  of  good  discourse,  an  excellent  musician,  and 
her  hair  shall  be  of  what  colour  it  please  God." 

"  Much  Ado  about  Nothing." 


VI 


The  Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean 
and  Other  Matters 


A  SIGNIFICANT     fact    about    Burns's     amours    is 
that    after    three   years   crowned   with    courtships 
and    intrigues  he    returned   to  his  old  love,  Jean 
Armour.     A  good  deal  of  doubt  has  been  expressed  as  to 
whether  this  marriage  really  secured  for  Burns  that  happi- 
ness and  tranquillity  on  which  he  had  set  his  mind. 

No  man  held  loftier  or  more  noble  ideals  concerning  the 
wedded  state.  A  good  wife,  he  thought,  was  the  panacea 
for  all  the  ills  that  poetical  flesh  was  heir  to.  One  of  his 
finest  poems  is,  in  fact,  the  apotheosis  of  domestic  bliss. 
The  "  Cotter's  Saturday  Night  "  is  now  an  imperishable 
fragment  of  the  Scottish  tongue,  and  the  picture  of  the 
toil-worn  peasant  returning  to  his  weans  and  wife  stands 
for  all  time,  the  poetical  idealisation  of  the  sturdiest  and 
most  ennobling  qualities  in  the  Scotch  peasant  race. 

Burns's  own  home  life  taught  him  to  cherish  this  noble 
ideal  of  domestic  happiness.  The  delightful  influence  of 
that  home  circle  at  Mount  Oliphant  was  ever  a  sweet  and 
abiding  memory  with  him.  William  Burns  was  only  known 
to  speak  a  harsh  word  to  his  wife  on  one  occasion,  and  the 
story  of  that  devoted  father  imparting  his  little  scraps  of 

51 


Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean "  and  Other  Matters 

knowledge  to  Robert,  and  botanising  in  the  hedge  bottom 
with  his  little  daughter,  cannot  be  read  without  emotion. 
No  wonder  Burns  wrote  that  "  domestic  bliss  is  the  spark 
of  celestial  fire  which  lights  up  the  wintry  hut  of  poverty 
and  makes  the  cheerless  mansion  warm,  comfortable,  and 
gay."  Without  it,  he  added,  "  life  to  the  poor  inmates 
of  the  cottage  would  be  a  damning  gift." 

Did  Burns  make  a  right  choice  ?  In  the  storm  and  stress 
of  the  three  or  four  years  that  followed  his  proposal  to 
Ellison  Begbie,  his  first  love,  and  a  servant  girl,  Burns 
confessed  that  he  had  "  a  wishing  eye  to  that  inestimable 
blessing,  a  wife."  At  the  Tarbolton  Bachelors'  Club,  of 
which  he  was  the  first  president,  the  eternal  topic  of  mar- 
riage occupied  the  members  at  the  opening  meeting.  The 
proposition  for  debate  was  thus  set  out :  "  Suppose  a 
young  man,  bred  a  farmer,  but  without  any  fortune,  has 
it  in  his  power  to  marry  either  of  two  women,  the  one  a 
girl  of  large  fortune,  but  neither  handsome  in  person  nor 
agreeable  in  conversation,  but  who  can  manage  the  house- 
hold affairs  on  a  farm  well  enough ;  the  other  of  them  a 
girl  very  agreeable  in  person,  conversation  and  behaviour 
but  without  any  fortune,  which  of  them  should  be  choose  ?  " 
The  chairman's  speech  must  have  been  worth  listening  to. 
A  problem  involving  equal  perplexities  seriously  engaged 
the  attention  of  Burns  a  few  years  later  when  he  had  to 
choose  between  making  an  honest  woman  of  Jean  and 
dangling  about  Clarinda  until  that  lady's  husband  was 
obliging  enough  to  die. 

She  would  have  been  a  rare  specimen  of  womankind 
who  could  make  an  ideal  wife  for  Burns.  Coleridge  once 

5* 


Story  of  "Bonnie  Jean"  and  Other  Matters 

said  that  the  most  happy  marriage  he  could  picture  or 
imagine  to  himself  would  be  the  union  of  a  deaf  man  to  a 
blind  woman  ;  but  De  Quincey  slyly  added  that  the  poet 
would  have  quarrelled  with  any  wife,  though  a  Pandora  sent 
down  from  Heaven  to  bless  him.  Propertius's  mistress  got 
drunk  and  threw  cups  at  her  lover's  head.  Browning 
loved  his  wife  so  passionately  that  when  her  father  died 
the  highest  tribute  he  could  pay  to  that  excellent  man's 
memory  was  to  remark,  "  He  was  worthy  of  being  Ba's 
father — out  of  the  whole  world  only  he  so  far  as  my  experi- 
ence goes." 

Burns  was  a  very  fastidious  lover,  and  he  expected  much 
from  his  wife.  "  The  scale  of  good  wifeship,"  he  said,  "  I 
divide  into  ten  parts — good  nature  four,  good  sense  two, 
wit  one,  personal  charms,  namely,  a  sweet  face,  eloquent 
eyes,  fine  limbs,  graceful  carriage  (I  would  add  a  fine  waist, 
too,  but  that  is  soon  spoilt),  all  these  one."  If  Mrs.  Burns 
was  not  endowed  with  these  qualities  in  their  various 
degrees,  Burns's  tributes,  both  in  prose  and  verse,  go  to 
show  that  she  made  him  an  excellent  wife. 

Stevenson  declared  that  Burns  "  was  all  his  life  on  a 
voyage  of  discovery,  but  it  does  not  appear  conclusively 
that  he  ever  touched  the  happy  isle."  So  far  as  this 
observation  is  intended  to  support  Stevenson's  theory  that 
Jean  was  all  along  in  love  with  some  one  else,  it  may  be 
dismissed  as  unworthy  of  consideration.  It  has  been 
found  necessary  to  defend  the  memory  of  Harriet  against 
the  aspersions  of  some  of  Shelley's  biographers.  Lady 
Byron  did  not  escape  the  accusation  of  cruelty  and  indiffer- 
ence towards  her  husband.  Jean,  who  bore  with  exem- 

53 


Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean  "  and  Other  Matters 

plary  patience  the  shortcomings  of  Burns,  even  to  the 
extent  of  bringing  up  his  illegitimate  child,  is  arraigned  on 
a  charge  of  being  unsympathetic  and  at  heart  unfaithful 
to  her  husband.  There  is  not  a  shred  of  evidence  to  sup- 
port such  an  accusation. 

Mrs.  Burns  is  no  less  a  pathetic  figure  in  the  drama  of 
Burns  than  Burns  himself.  With  forced  humour  and  an 
aching  heart  at  the  thought  of  her  husband's  incontinences, 
she  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  Oor  Robin  should  hae  had 
twa  wives."  There  must  have  been  an  intense  belief  in 
the  God-given  genius  of  her  husband,  amounting  to  nothing 
short  of  hero-worship,  before,  as  a  wife,  Jean  could  view 
with  quiet  toleration  the  canonisation  of  Highland  Mary. 
It  is  enough  to  recall  the  circumstances  under  which  that 
beautiful  poem,  "  To  Mary  in  Heaven,"  was  conceived. 
Burns  was  discovered  by  his  wife  lying  on  his  back  in  an 
outhouse,  his  face  lighted  up  with  a  glow  of  poetic  inspira- 
tion, and  his  heart  torn  with  anguish  for  the  loss  of  his 
Highland  divinity.  She  called  him  indoors  twice,  but  he 
took  no  notice.  When  he  did  come  in,  he  sat  down  and 
produced  the  poem  to  his  dead  Mary.  It  was  true  Burns 
bestowed  his  poetical  favours  equally  on  Jean,  as  instance 
the  lines  surely  ardent  enough  for  any  wife : — 

"  It  warms  me,  it  charms  me 
To  mention  but  her  name ; 
It  heats  me,  it  beats  me 
And  sets  me  a'  on  a  flame." 

But  how  many  wives  will  bide  a  rival  near  the  throne  ? 
Highland  Mary,  shrouded  in  mystery  as  she  is,  was  ever 
the  cherished  divinity  of  Burns's  heart ;  she  absorbed  the 

54 


Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean  "  and  Other  Matters 

poetical  side  of  him  as  completely  as  Dante's  Beatrice. 
The  recollection  of  her  moved  him  to  tears  and  poetry, 
and  after  his  marriage,  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Dunlop  in  a  burst 
of  passionate  reminiscence  :  "  There  should  I,  with  speech- 
less agony  of  rapture,  again  recognise  my  lost,  my  dear 
Mary,  whose  bosom  was  fraught  with  truth,  honour, 
constancy,  and  love." 

After  the  lapse  of  a  little  more  than  one  hundred  years,  it 
is  no  longer  necessary  to  disguise  the  fact  that  the  squalor 
and  the  moral  guiltiness  of  Burns's  life  are  inextricably 
bound  up  with  the  productions  of  his  genius ;  that,  in 
short,  all  these  accumulated  experiences  in  the  fields  of 
romance,  these  illicit  courtships  and  intrigues,  have  been 
fused  into  his  amorous  poetry  and  are  part  of  the  man, 
inseparable,  indissoluble.  Let  us  have  done  with  the 
current  cant  and  accept  no  plaster-saint  presentment  of 
Burns.  It  is  true  that  of  late  years  one  or  two  biographers, 
more  bold  than  the  rest,  have  politely  declined  to  foster 
the  tradition  that  Robert  Burns  was  not  half  so  black  as 
he  was  painted.  But  for  the  most  part,  authors  of  lives 
of  Burns — and  they  have  been  legion — may  be  said  to  have 
abused  the  attribute  of  charity  almost  to  the  point  of 
absurdity.  They  have  surrounded  the  poet  with  a  halo 
of  righteousness,  and  craved  the  reader  to  drop  a  silent  tear 
on  his  tomb.  This  is  reverent  and  touching.  It  may  be 
the  correct  attitude  at  the  graveside,  but  the  centenary  of 
Burns  has  been  celebrated.  Now  the  question  is :  Have 
we  any  right  at  all  to  apologise  for  genius  ?  Poetical 
genius,  at  any  rate,  is  mostly  blind  to  the  moralities.  Shelley 
and  Byron  stand  side  by  side  with  Burns  as  examples  of 

55 


Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean  "  and  Other  Matters 

poetic  genius  who  ought  to  have  been  eternally  shadowed 
by  a  moral  policeman.  But  you  must  take  your  poets  as 
you  find  them. 

"  Could  this  ill  world  hae  been  contrived 
To  stand  without  mischievous  woman, 
How  peacefu'  bodies  might  hae  lived 
Released  frae  a'  the  arts  sae  common." 

Woman  was  the  eternal  magnet  that  drew  the  poetry 
out  of  Burns's  soul,  that  electrified  that  little  bundle  of 
appetites,  ideas,  and  fancies.  Can  any  one  conceive  the 
real  Robbie  Burns  without  Betty  Paton,  Jean  Lorimer, 
Jean  Armour,  Highland  Mary,  the  gay  troop  of  peasant 
lassies  who  sent  him  off  whistling  and  singing  through  the 
ploughed  fields  ?  Of  course,  Burns  was  something  more 
than  a  passionate  rhymist.  To  the  Ayrshire  peasant  girls 
poetical  incense  could  only  be  a  shadowy  and  unsubstantial 
element  in  the  commerce  of  love.  He  was  a  good-looking 
buck  and  his  poems  show  that  these  lassies  were  fonder  of 
kissing  under  "  the  milk  white  thorn "  than  posing  as 
Cupid's  models  for  the  jingles  of  a  poet. 

Burns  threw  a  sonnet  at  every  pretty  girl  he  met.  It 
was  an  incurable  habit  of  his  that  remained  with  him  to 
the  end.  When  he  was  on  his  death-bed,  Jessie  Lewars 
was  made  the  heroine  of  a  poem.  Wherever  he  might 
have  been  born,  woman  would  have  been  his  destiny. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  deny  the  part  which  his  hard  and 
uncongenial  environment  played  in  the  development  of  his 
moral  character.  He  lived  a  hard  life,  in  an  atmosphere 
of  grey,  under  just  those  conditions  which  were  calculated 
to  send  a  man  of  his  temperament  headlong  to  the 

56 


Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean "  and  Other  Matters 

devil  so  far  as  women  were  concerned.  His  early  years 
were  marked  by  the  strictest  continency.  But  when  he 
took  to  dancing  and  rhyming,  and  first  gave  way  to  "  a 
certain  fashionable  folly,"  his  moral  shipwreck  became  as 
certain  as  anything  in  this  world  could  be.  Ever  after- 
wards woman  was  his  eternal  quest.  His  never-varying 
toast  was  the  sex  : — 

"  I  like  the  jades  for  a'  that, 
For  a'  that  and  a'  that, 
An  twice  as  muckle  as  a*  that." 

He  was  remarkably  fond  of  servant-girls.  His  customary 
attitude  towards  his  women  was  one  of  extreme  conde- 
scension. The  gay  young  ballad-maker  reached  down  to 
their  level  and  consented  to  love  them.  It  was  the  testi- 
mony of  his  brother  Gilbert  that  he  was  jealous  of  those 
in  a  higher  social  position  than  himself,  and  consequently 
his  affections  were  rarely  settled  on  people  of  that  class. 

He  was,  on  his  own  confession,  in  the  secrets  of  half 
the  gallants  in  the  parish  of  Tarbolton.  When  a  fellow 
rustic,  with  a  full  heart  and  a  halting  pen,  realised  that  the 
psychological  moment  had  come,  it  was  to  Burns  he 
turned  for  guidance  in  the  composition  of  a  proposal. 
The  poet  was  no  mean  hand  at  a  billet-doux.  When  a  lad 
at  school  he  fashioned  his  epistolary  style  on  a  collection 
of  letters  of  the  wits  of  Queen  Anne's  reign,  which  he  picked 
up  at  a  bookshop  by  the  merest  chance.  There  is  some- 
thing decidedly  comic  about  the  high-flown  prose  of  some 
of  Burns's  own  letters  to  his  sweethearts.  They  are  not 
warm  and  glowing  with  passion,  breathing  like  his  verse 
wholehearted  slavish  devotion  to  their  object.  They  are 

57 


Story  of  "  Bonnie  Jean "  and  Other  Matters 

more  often  stilted  and  formal  declarations  in  which  the 
metaphors  run  riot  and  the  simplest  propositions  are  lost 
in  a  labyrinth  of  words.  We  wonder,  for  example,  what 
Miss  Begbie  thought  of  the  following  style  of  proposal : — 

"  If  you  will  be  so  good  as  to  grant  my  wishes  and  it  should  please 
Providence  to  spare  us  the  latest  periods  of  life  I  can  look  forward 
and  see  that  even  then  though  bent  down  with  wrinkled  age,  even 
then  when  other  worldly  circumstances  will  be  different  to  me,  I 

will  regard  my  E with  the  tenderest  affection ;  and  for  this  plain 

reason,  because  she  is  still  possessed  of  those  noble  qualities,  im- 
proved to  a  much  higher  degree,  which  first  inspired  my  affection 
for  her." 

This  is  Burns's  youthful  version  in  Johnsonian  prose  of 
that  exquisite  poem  "  John  Anderson,  my  Jo." 

The  unhappy  influence  of  the  polite  letter-writer  always 
remained  with  the  poet,  and  the  famous  pastoral  of  Syl- 
vander  and  Clarinda  subsequently  produced  a  batch  of 
love-letters  which  are  unique  examples  of  pomposity. 

When  he  left  the  belles  of  Tarbolton,  he  paid  his  court 
to  a  Lothian  farmer's  daughter,  "  whom  I  have  almost 
persuaded  to  accompany  me  to  the  West  country."  He 
started  a  "  chaise "  after  a  certain  Edinburgh  belle  to 
whom  he  talked  sentiment  and  whose  hand  he  squeezed. 
At  Carlisle  a  girl  tried  to  drag  him  to  Gretna  Green,  but  he 
was  not  a  "  gull."  It  is  the  same  right  through  the  story. 
We  might  conciliate  the  lovers  of  a  plaster-saint  Burns  by 
merely  saying  that  these  incidents  are  recalled  only  by  way 
of  showing  that  Burns  himself  thought  them  indispensable 
to  the  education  of  a  poet.  Whenever  he  met  a  pretty 
woman,  he  wrote  a  poem.  Sometimes  he  also  broke  a 
commandment,  but  that's  part  of  the  bargain. 

58 


VII 
THE   LOVE   STORY   OF   KEATS 


I,  forsooth  in  love  !    I,  that  have  been  love's  whip  ! 

Go  to ;    it  is  a  plague 
That  Cupid  will  impose  for  my  neglect 
Of  his  almighty  dreadful  little  might. 
Well,  I  will  love,  write,  sigh,  pray,  sue,  groan." 

"  Love's  Labour's  Lost. 


"  When  first  we  met,  we  did  not  guess 

That  Love  would  prove  so  hard  a  master ; 
Of  more  than  common  friendliness 
When  first  we  met  we  did  not  guess. 
Who  could  foretell  the  sore  distress, 

This  irretrievable  disaster, 
When  first  we  met  ? — we  did  not  guess 

That  Love  would  prove  so  hard  a  master." 

Robert  Bridges. 


VII 

The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


ONE  of  the  best  remembered  passages  of  Richard 
Monckton  Milnes's  discerning  and  sympathetic 
life  of  John  Keats  embodies  the  chief  events 
which  relate  to  the  development  and  the  ending  of  a 
strangely  pathetic  love  story.  In  the  fifty  years  or  so 
which  have  elapsed  since  the  biographer  wrote  that  the 
young  poet's  life  had  been  notable  for  "  the  publication 
of  some  small  volumes  of  verse,  some  earnest  friendships, 
one  profound  passion  and  a  premature  death  "  a  good  deal 
of  material  has  come  to  light,  including  that  famous 
volume  of  love-letters  which  tends  to  connect  indissolubly 
the  last  two  incidents  of  the  four.  How  far  the  feverish 
jealousy,  the  mental  unrest  and  worry  of  the  one  grand 
passion  of  the  poet's  life,  hastened  his  death,  it  is  of 
course  impossible  for  any  one  to  say.  That  it  was  one  of 
the  chief  contributory  causes  seems  beyond  the  shadow 
of  a  doubt. 

The  publication  of  these  letters  dissipates  for  ever  the 
belief  of  Shelley  that  Keats's  death  was  indirectly  due 
to  the  scurrilous  attacks  on  his  poetical  reputation.  The 
legend  which  led  to  the  writing  of  "  Adonais,"  and  caused 
Lord  Byron  tardily  to  recant  his  ill-natured  diatribes, 

61 


The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


is  still  very  much  alive.  But  it  is  nothing  more  than 
a  legend.  Keats,  as  Byron  said,  was  not  the  man  "  to 
be  snuffed  out  by  an  article,"  and  only  the  picturesque- 
ness  of  the  suggestion  has  enabled  it  to  survive  and  be 
accepted  as  gospel  truth  for  so  long.  "  Praise  or  blame," 
wrote  Keats  to  his  publisher,  "  has  but  a  momentary  effect 
on  the  man  whose  love  of  beauty  in  the  abstract  makes  him 
a  severe  critic  of  his  own  works."  Keats  knew  well  enough 
that  it  is  the  fate  of  nearly  every  great  poet  to  receive 
a  baptism  of  adverse  criticism,  ofttimes  seasoned  to  the 
popular  taste  with  a  touch  of  the  scurrility  and  per- 
sonal abuse  which  characterised  the  attacks  made  on 
"  Endymion."  Shelley,  and  Byron,  and  Wordsworth, 
and  later  Tennyson,  all  passed  through  the  same  ordeal. 

Although  the  latter  part  of  Keats's  life  was  rendered  mis- 
erable by  the  effects  of  a  consuming  passion,  he  did  not, 
like  some  of  his  greatest  contemporary  singers,  discover 
the  road  to  poetry  through  the  tortuous  paths  of  love. 
But  in  one  of  his  earliest  poems,  reflecting  on  the  misery 
of  disappointed  passion,  it  is  to  the  Muse  he  turns  for 
solace  : — 

"  Should  e'er  unhappy  love  my  bosom  pain 
From  cruel  parents  or  relentless  fair  ; 
O  let  me  think  it  is  not  quite  in  vain 
To  sigh  our  sonnets  to  the  mid-night  air. 
Sweet  hope  !    Ethereal  balm  upon  me  shed, 
And  wave  thy  silver  pinions  o'er  my  head." 

Until  he  met  the  woman  who  was  to  destroy  his  peace 
of  mind  and  to  stretch  him  on  a  rack  of  roses,  Keats 
had  a  fair  share  of  that  boyish  sensitiveness  that  inter- 
prets as  a  sign  of  weakness  any  soft  advances  of  man  to- 

62 


The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


wards  woman.  There  was  about  the  juvenile  Keats  nothing 
of  the  sentimentality,  the  lascivious  softness  of  Shelley, 
or  the  precocious  gallantry  of  Byron  ;  and  later  on,  when 
he  met  his  fate  in  Fanny  Brawne,  he  was,  outside  his 
letters,  shy  and  awkward  and  extremely  reserved.  There 
are  no  sonnets  extolling  the  beauty  of  his  mistress's  eye- 
brows. Severn,  the  devoted  friend  who  nursed  him  through 
his  fatal  illness,  declared,  in  answer  to  a  question  as  to 
whether  Keats  ever  referred  to  "  the  cankerworm  which 
was  eating  away  his  heart,"  replied,  "  not  a  word  ever 
passed  his  lips." 

Keats  was  not  fitted  for  the  role  of  lover.  He  had  none 
of  the  longings  of  Burns  for  an  ideal  partner  through 
life.  His  whole  attitude  to  the  sex  was  one  of  open 
hostility,  and  when  it  was  fulfilled  that  a  woman  should 
enslave  him,  the  young  scoffer  went  down,  as  it  were,  with 
his  anti-matrimonial  banners  flying.  He  protested  to  the 
last  against  the  thraldom  of  love  and  passion,  and  yet 
remained  as  weak  as  water  and  was  obedient  to  and  grate- 
ful for  a  look  or  a  written  word  from  his  mistress.  In  July, 
1818,  he  writes  to  Bailey  from  Inverary  : — 

"  I  have  not  the  right  feeling  towards  women — at  this  moment 
I  am  striving  to  be  just  to  them,  but  I  cannot.  It  is  because  they 
fall  so  far  beneath  my  boyish  imagination.  When  I  was  a  school- 
boy I  thought  a  fair  woman  a  pure  goddess ;  my  mind  was  a  soft 
nest  in  which  some  one  of  them  slept,  though  she  knew  not.  I 
have  no  right  to  expect  more  than  their  reality.  I  thought  them 
ethereal,  above  men.  I  find  them  perhaps  equal.  ...  I  do  not 
like  to  think  insults  in  a  lady's  company.  I  commit  a  crime  with 
her  which  absence  would  not  have  known.  It  is  not  extraordinary 
when  among  men  I  have  no  evil  thoughts,  no  malice,  no  spleen.  I 
feel  free  to  speak  or  to  be  silent ;  I  can  listen,  and  from  every  one  I 

63 


The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


can  learn ;  my  hands  are  in  my  pockets ;  I  am  free  from  all  sus- 
picion and  comfortable.  When  I  am  among  women,  I  have  evil 
thoughts,  malice,  spleen  ;  I  cannot  speak  or  be  silent ;  I  am  full  of 
suspicions,  and  therefore  listen  to  nothing.  I  am  in  a  hurry  to  be 
gone." 

More  than  this  he  is  not  content  with  expressing  his 
aversion  to  women,  but  goes  the  length  of  laughing  in  the 
faces  of  those  who  have  been  attracted  by  their  charms. 
He  sees  humour  in  the  miserable  plight  of  a  love-sick 
Lothario.  "  Even,"  he  says,  "  when  I  know  a  poor  fool 
to  be  really  in  pain  about  it,  I  could  burst  out  laughing  in 
his  face." 

It  is  a  curious  commentary  on  this  attitude  of  studied 
contempt  for  women  that  the  voice  of  the  scoffer  should 
ring  out  in  poems  that  are  full  of  the  luxury  of  passion  and 
the  most  exaggerated  sentiment.  Perhaps  it  may  be 
argued  that  a  poet  who  knows  his  trade  has  no  need  to 
reflect  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings  in  what  he  writes. 
The  real  views  of  Keats,  however,  are  to  be  discovered 
over  and  over  again  in  his  poems  and  letters.  He  always 
chooses  to  regard  earthly  love  and  the  search  after  ideal 
beauty  as  manifested  in  poetry,  as  antagonistic  forces. 
In  his  letters  he  declares  repeatedly  that  a  passion  for 
women  can  only  distract  and  harass  the  man  who  is  to  be 
a  poet.  "  I  equally  dislike,"  he  says,  "  the  favour  of  the 
public  with  the  love  of  a  woman.  They  are  both  a  cloying 
treacle  on  the  wings  of  independence." 

How  different  it  was  both  with  Burns  and  Byron.  Passion 
with  them  was  the  spring  of  poesy,  and  the  first  promptings 
of  genius  were  inspired  by  the  freshness  and  beauty  of  a 

64 


The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


youthful  romance  into  which  had  entered  all  the  glow  and 
colour  of  life. 

The  circumstances  of  Keats's  meeting  with  the  lady  who 
was  to  exercise  such  tragic  influence  on  the  last  three  years 
of  his  life  are  well  known.  He  had  just  lost  one  brother 
by  the  disease  which  was  afterwards  to  strike  him  down. 
Another  one  was  in  America.  His  friend,  Mr.  Armitage 
Brown,  invited  the  poet  to  join  him  at  Wentworth  Place, 
where  they  had  for  their  next  door  neighbour  Mrs.  Brawne, 
the  widow  of  a  gentleman  of  means,  who  lived  with  her 
daughter  Fanny,  and  two  other  children.  The  only  record 
of  the  poet's  meeting  with  Miss  Brawne  is  contained  in  a 
letter  written  to  his  brother  towards  the  end  of  December, 
1818.  The  value  of  observing  exactly  the  dates  of  this 
story  will  be  obvious  in  a  moment ;  and  if  any  justification 
were  required  for  printing  the  letter  in  full,  it  is  to  be  found 
in  the  remarkable,  and  somewhat  ungallant  freedom,  with 
which  the  writer  discusses  the  physical  attributes  of  his 
new  acquaintance  : — 

"  Perhaps  as  you  are  fond  of  giving  me  sketches  of  characters, 
you  may  like  a  little  picnic  of  scandal  even  across  the  Atlantic. 
Shall  I  give  you  Miss  Brawne  ?  She  is  about  my  height,  with  a  fine 
style  of  countenance  of  the  lengthened  sort ;  she  wants  sentiment 
in  every  feature ;  she  manages  to  make  her  hair  look  well ;  her 
nostrils  are  very  fine,  though  a  little  painful ;  her  mouth  is  bad  and 
good  ;  her  profile  is  better  than  her  full  face,  which  indeed  is  not 
full,  but  pale  and  thin  without  showing  any  bone ;  her  shape  is 
very  graceful  and  so  are  her  movements ;  her  arms  are  good,  her 
hands  badish,  her  feet  tolerable. 

"  She  is  not  seventeen,  but  she  is  ignorant ;  monstrous  in  her 

behaviour,  flying  out  in  all  directions,  calling  people  such  names 

that  I  was  forced  lately  to  make  use  of  the  term — minx  ;   this  is,  I 

think,  from  no  innate  vice,  but  from  a  penchant  she  has  for  acting 

F  65 


The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


stylishly.  I  am,  however,  tired  of  such  style,  and  shall  decline  any 
more  of  it.  She  had  a  friend  to  visit  her  lately.  You  have  known 
plenty  such.  She  plays  the  music,  but  without  one  sensation  but 
the  feel  of  the  ivory  at  her  fingers.  She  is  a  downright  miss  without 
one  set-off.  We  hated  her,  and  smoked  her,  and  bated  her,  and  I 
think  drove  her  away.  Miss  Brawne  thinks  her  a  paragon  of  fashion, 
and  says  she  is  the  only  woman  in  the  world  she  would  change 
persons  with.  What  a  stupe !  She  is  as  superior  as  a  rose  to  a 
dandelion." 

Thus,  after  cataloguing  the  lady's  virtues  and  defects 
with  a  cruel  impartiality  that  would  have  eternally 
estranged  her  could  she  have  read  this  letter,  Keats 
allows  her  some  attractive  qualities  by  comparison.  But 
one  cannot  be  expected  to  write  the  lady  down  beautiful 
on  the  strength  of  this  description.  And  the  silhouette 
which  is  to  be  found  in  one  or  two  editions  of  the  poet's 
works  does  not  assist  us  out  of  the  difficulty.  But  sil- 
houettes are  inadequate.  Mr.  Rossetti,  who  seems  to 
have  studied  this  picture  attentively,  says  it  shows  "  a 
very  profuse  mass  of  hair,  a  tall,  rather  sloping  forehead, 
a  long  and  prominent  aquiline  nose,  a  mouth  and  chin  of 
the  petite  kind,  a  very  well-developed  throat,  and  a  figure 
somewhat  small  in  proportion  to  the  head."  This  is  at 
least  more  charitable,  and  certainly  more  helpful  and 
informing,  than  a  description  which  speaks  of  "  a  fine  style 
of  countenance  of  the  lengthened  sort."  It  is  stated  also 
that  Miss  Brawne  had  blue  eyes,  which  were  doubtless  an 
additional  attraction  to  a  poet  who  once  wrote  : — 

"  Blue  !    Tis  the  life  of  heaven — the  domain 
Of  Cynthia — the  wide  palace  of  the  sun." 

At  a  riper  stage  of  the  acquaintance,  when  it  does  not 

66 


The  Love  Story  of  Keats 


appear  the  lady  is  at  all  in  a  mood  to  respond  to  his  passion, 
the  poet  drops  the  critical  habit  and  declares  himself  lost 
in  "  swooning  admiration  of  your  beauty."  But  we  are 
not  at  all  certain  that  when  Keats  wrote  the  pitiless  descrip- 
tion just  quoted,  he  was  not  all  the  time  in  love  with  her, 
and  the  letter  was  merely  by  way  of  concealing  the  fact. 

Let  us  see.  Keats  became  formally  engaged  to  Miss 
Brawne  between  December,  1818,  and  the  following  summer, 
and  in  August,  1819,  in  the  very  flood  tide  of  his  passion, 
he  wrote  to  Mr.  Taylor  : — 

"  I  feel  every  confidence  that  if  I  choose,  I  may  be  a  popular 
writer.  That  I  will  never  be ;  but  for  all  that  I  will  get  a  livelihood. 
I  equally  dislike  the  favour  of  the  public  with  the  love  of  woman." 

At  this  time,  too,  he  attributes  the  slow  sale  of  his  book 
to  the  offence  the  ladies  have  taken  at  him  and  admits 
that  they  are  partly  justified  by  the  tendency  he  displays 
in  his  poems  to  class  them  "  with  roses  and  sweetmeats 
— they  never  see  themselves  dominant."  It  is  true  that 
Keats's  women  are  never  real  creatures  of  flesh  and  blood 
who  love  and  hate  passionately.  They  are  as  unlike  the 
soft  voluptuous  gazelles  of  Byron  and  the  strapping 
buxom  lassies  who  lighted  up  the  imagination  of  Burns, 
as  the  meek  Tennysonian  maidens  are  unlike  the  athletic 
heroines  of  modern  fiction.  They  are  soft  ethereal  beings 
who  are  lost  in  an  atmosphere  of  splendid  imagery ;  and 
we  regard  them  merely  as  spectacular  accessories  to  the 
music  of  the  song. 


VIII 

A    BATCH    OF    TOUCHING    LOVE 
LETTERS 


"  My  letters !    all  dead  paper,  .  .  .  mute  and  white  ! — 
And  yet  they  seem  alive  and  quivering 
Against  my  tremulous  hands." 

Elizabeth  Barrett  Browning. 


"  Well,  I  never  saw  such  a  letter  in  my  life — so  saucy,  so  journalish, 
so  sanguine,  so  pretending,  so  everything  .  .  .  yet  you  are  an  im- 
pudent slut  to  be  so  positive." 

Dean  Swift  to  Stella. 


VIII 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love 
Letters 


THE  little  volume  of  love  letters  in  which  is  told 
the  story  of    Keats's    overmastering  passion   for 
Fanny  Brawne  must  be  numbered  amongst  the 
most  pathetic  things  in  the  whole  range  of  English  literature. 
It  is  surely  one  of  life's  bitterest  ironies  that  the  poet  who 
ridiculed  love  as  a  childish  and  effeminate  weakness  should 
have  become  enraptured  to  the  point  of  distraction  when 
he  required  all  his  strength  to  fight  for  life. 

As  I  have  said  already,  the  attitude  of  Keats  towards 
women  was  one  of  conscious  superiority  bordering  on 
contempt.  Yet,  when  the  barbed  dart  was  pointed  at 
him,  down  he  came,  as  Burns  would  say,  "  Pop  !  Like 
Corporal  Trim's  hat."  In  a  glowing  letter  to  his  brother 
George  in  America,  Keats  declared  that : — 

"  the  roaring  of  the  wind  is  my  wife  and  the  stars  through  the 
window  panes  are  my  children.  The  mighty  abstract  idea  of  beauty 
in  all  things  that  I  have,  stifles  the  more  divided  and  minute  domestic 
happiness." 

The  poet  had  resolved  to  sacrifice  everything  to  his  art. 
His  youthful  dreams,  like  the  dreams  of  Shelley,  with 
whom  he  had  so  much  in  common,  were  of  a  mighty  fame 
to  be  won  by  touching  the  heart  of  the  whole  world  and 

71 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

not  flattering  that  of  one  woman.  This  was  always  his 
attitude  when  he  could  think  sanely.  At  the  beginnings 
of  that  burning  passion  which  probably  helped  to  destroy 
his  life  and  certainly  left  him  bereft  of  all  peace  of  mind,  he 
foresaw  with  prophetic  instinct  the  inevitable  tragedy  and 
longed  to  shake  himself  free  again.  But  he  was  hopelessly, 
irretrievably  entangled — a  glimpse  of  the  woman  he  loved 
left  him  blind  to  everything  else  in  the  universe.  There 
is  a  despairing  cry  in  one  of  the  earlier  letters  of  the  series  : — 

"  Ask  yourself,  my  love,  whether  you  are  not  very  cruel  to  have 
so  entrammelled  me,  so  destroyed  my  freedom." 

This  is  not  an  idle  lover's  jest.  It  is  a  reproach  penned 
in  all  sincerity  and  in  an  agony  of  bitterness  at  the  thought 
of  that  sacrifice  of  peace  of  mind  and  freedom  from  mental 
worry  that  are  necessary  to  any  great  creative  achievement. 
The  poem  of  "  Lamia  "  composed  at  this  time  represents  a 
struggle  between  a  consuming  passion  and  philosophy  ;  and 
the  position  of  the  poet,  almost  identical  as  it  is,  recalls 
to  the  mind  the  words  of  Shakespeare's  Biron  : — 

"  And  I  forsooth  in  love  !    I  that 
Have  been  love's  whip, 
A  very  beadle  to  a  humorous  sigh. 

Regent  of  love  rhymes,  lord  of  folded  arms, 
The  anointed  sovereign  of  sighs  and  groans." 

The  sense  of  exasperation  awakened  in  Keats  by  the 
knowledge  of  his  impotence  in  the  face  of  this  grand  passion 
is  responsible  for  a  good  deal  of  the  waywardness,  the 
selfishness,  and  the  note  of  querulousness  which  runs 
through  his  letters.  In  endeavouring  to  judge  the  char- 

72 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

acter  of  Keats  from  these  letters  one  must  not  forget  to 
make  allowances  for  the  desperate  lot  of  the  writer.  Here- 
ditary disease  had  stricken  him  down  at  the  moment  of 
intellectual  adolescence.  He  was  filled  with  big  schemes  to 
give  the  world  something  which  would  make  secure  for 
posterity  that  position  which,  in  spite  of  the  venom  of  critics 
like  Byron,  he  felt  he  had  won  amongst  the  poets.  As  yet 
he  had  done  no  more  than  taste  the  sweetness  of  poesy. 
He  was  beginning  to  realise  in  himself  those  potentialities 
of  greatness  which  provoked  the  cry  : — 

"  O  for  ten  years  that  I  might  overwhelm  myself  in  poesy  !  " 

It  was  heartbreaking  for  him  to  reflect  that  he  was 
thus  being  dragged  helplessly  from  a  task  which  partook 
in  some  degree  of  the  nature  of  a  vindication.  We 
cannot  be  very  tolerant  with  those  who  critically  analyse 
these  love  letters,  and  end  by  putting  the  poet  on  his 
trial  as  a  selfish  egotist.  But,  apart  from  any  light 
they  may  throw  on  the  personal  character  and  disposition 
of  the  poet,  as  the  literary  expression  of  a  profound  passion, 
these  letters  are  perhaps  unrivalled.  The  spirit  of  real 
poetry  permeates  them.  There  is  to  be  found  everywhere 
a  richness,  a  daintiness,  a  rare  command  of  striking  beauti- 
ful images,  such  as  one  comes  across  nowhere  outside  the 
greatest  poetry.  I  do  not  know  any  volume  of  letters 
in  the  English  language  to  surpass  them. 

There  have  been  many  beautiful  love-letters  written  by 
poets.  Burns's  letters  in  the  course  of  his  philanderings 
with  Mrs.  M'Lehose,  although  marred  by  much  foolish  and 
rhapsodical  nonsense,  are  studded  with  exquisite  phrases. 

73 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

Byron,  at  the  time  he  was  flaunting  his  gallantries  in  the 
face  of  Europe,  left  lying  in  an  Italian  garden  on  the  page 
of  a  chance  novel,  a  charming  epistle  which  for  ever  united 
him  to  the  one  woman  who  was  capable  of  stirring  in  him 
a  deep  and  lasting  affection.  But  the  letters  of  Keats  are 
permeated  with  a  beauty  altogether  distinct — the  beauty  of 
pathos.  They  cannot  be  read  without  pain,  and  it  is  some- 
times painful  even  to  write  about  them.  The  agony  of 
some  of  the  latest  in  the  volume  almost  makes  one  wish 
with  Mr.  Sydney  Colvin  that  they  had  never  been  laid 
bare  to  the  curious  eye  of  the  world. 

In  defence  of  those  who  gave  to  the  world  this  poignant 
volume,  it  may  be  said  that  Keats  himself  probably 
foresaw  that  if  he  was  amongst  the  great  poets,  as  he  pro- 
phesied he  would  be,  even  the  record  of  this  single  passion 
might  be  read  by  strange  eyes.  Every  line  in  the  most 
pathetic  letter  is  written  with  the  unerring  hand  of  the 
poet.  His  passion  never  overcame  him  so  that  he  slurred 
the  artistry  of  his  work,  or  failed  to  seize  the  inspired  word. 
He  had  a  keen  intellectual  joy  even  in  this  tormenting 
operation.  "  What  would  Rousseau  have  said  had  he 
seen  our  little  correspondence  ?  "  he  asked  of  Miss  Brawne. 
"  What  would  his  ladies  have  said  ?  I  don't  care  much. 
I  would  sooner  have  Shakespeare's  opinion  about  the 
matter."  Shakespeare  was  always  the  final  court  of  appeal 
with  Keats.  "  I  never  quite  despair,"  he  said  to  Haydon, 
"  if  I  read  Shakespeare,"  and  to  Reynolds,  "  Say  a  word  or 
two  on  some  passages  in  Shakespeare  that  may  have  come 
rather  new  to  you,  which  must  be  continually  happening, 
notwithstanding  that  we  read  the  same  play  forty  times." 

74 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

May  we  then  not  assume  that  Keats  would  hardly  have 
speculated  thus  about  his  letters  becoming  public  unless 
he  perceived  the  possibility  of  such  an  event,  and  more- 
over had  the  letters  not  been  of  his  best  would  he  even 
jestingly  have  dared  to  indulge  the  idea  of  Shakespeare 
sitting  in  judgment  on  them  ?  There  is,  by  the  way, 
another  sidelight  bearing  on  this  controversy.  It  is  forth- 
coming in  one  of  the  letters  : — 

"  I  have  nothing  particular  to  say  to-day,"  Keats  writes  to  Miss 
Brawne,  "  but  not  intending  that  there  should  be  any  interruption 
to  our  correspondence  (which  at  some  future  time  I  propose  offering 
to  Murray),  I  write  something." 

But  there  is  no  need  to  pursue  these  speculations  any 
further.  When  the  poet  rejoices  that  Miss  Brawne  can 
love  him  without  being  "  letter-written  and  sentimentalised 
into  it  "  (after  the  Rousseau  fashion),  he  forgets  that  his 
own  letters  are  about  as  sentimental  as  they  well  can  be, 
and  indeed  resolve  themselves  into  the  most  passionate 
outpourings  of  a  love-sick  heart.  Miss  Brawne  was  not 
affected  in  the  least  by  the  fine  poetical  imagery  and  the 
beauty  of  diction  in  which  she  was  addressed.  This  fact 
strangely  enough  lent  added  strength  to  the  sincerity  of 
Keats's  belief  that  the  lady  loved  him  fondly.  As  he 
could  not  be  loved  for  his  poetry  by  one  who  had  no  ap- 
preciation of  poetry,  therefore  he  argued  he  must  be  loved 
for  himself  alone ;  and  the  simple  thought  was  delicious 
to  him.  In  one  place,  he  says  : — 

"  I  cannot  conceive  any  beginning  of  such  love  as  I  have  for  you, 
save  Beauty.  There  may  be  a  sort  of  love  for  which,  without  the 
least  sneer  at  it,  I  have  the  highest  respect,  and  can  admire  in  others, 
but  it  has  not  the  richness,  the  bloom,  the  full  form,  the  enchantment 

75 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

of  love  after  my  own  heart.  So  let  me  speak  of  your  beauty,  though 
to  my  own  endangering,  if  you  could  be  so  cruel  as  to  try  elsewhere 
its  power  ...  I  love  you  more  in  that  I  believe  you  have  liked  me 
for  my  own  sake,  and  for  nothing  else.  I  have  met  with  women 
whom  I  really  think  would  like  to  be  married  to  a  Poem,  and  to  be 
given  away  by  a  Novel." 

We  recall  that  Byron  in  less  happy  language  accused 
Miss  Milbanke  of  having  married  him  out  of  sheer  vanity 
because  he  was  a  poet. 

Those  who  study  these  letters  carefully  in  the  light  of 
the  author's  poems  will  be  struck  by  a  remarkable  simi- 
larity at  many  points.  Strange  as  it  is  that  the  man  who 
laughed  at  love  should  have  become  its  devoted  slave, 
it  is  perhaps  stranger  still  that  the  author  of  "  Endymion's 
Pilgrimage  "  should  in  his  own  person  experience  the  same 
heart-sickness  and  be  devoured  by  the  same  vain  and 
morbid  imaginings  as  the  youthful  hero  in  quest  of  his 
ideal  love.  There  are  passages  in  "  Endymion  "  full  of 
prophetic  significance ;  and,  what  is  more,  the  hysterical 
and  impassioned  style  of  that  poem  is  reflected  in  Keats's 
wooing.  Take  the  cry  against  Fanny  Brawne,  whom 
Keats  charges  with  "  destroying  his  freedom,"  and  com- 
pare it  with  the  explanation  of  Endymion  : — 

"  Woe,  alas ! 
That  love  should  ever  be  my  bane." 

And  Peona's  remonstrance  to  her  brother : — 

"  Is  this  the  cause  ! 

This  all !    Yet  it  is  strange  and  sad,  alas  ! 
That  one  who  through  this  middle  earth  should  pass 
Most  like  a  journeying  demi-god,  and  leave 
His  name  upon  the  harp-string,   should  achieve 
No  higher  bard  than  single  maidenhood." 

76 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

Again,  two  more  extracts  may  be  quoted  : — 

"  My  passion  grew 
The  more  I  saw  her  dainty  hue 
Gleam  delicately  thro'  the  azure  clear 
Until  'twas  too  fierce  agony  to  bear." 

Then  he  wrote  in  one  of  his  letters  : — 

"  Even  when  I  am  thinking  of  you,  I  receive  your  influence  and 
a  tenderer  nature  stealing  upon  me.  All  my  thoughts,  my  un- 
happiest  days  and  nights,  have,  I  find,  not  at  all  cured  me  of  my 
love  of  beauty,  but  made  it  so  intense  that  I  am  miserable  that  you 
are  not  with  me,  or  rather  breathe  in  that  one  sort  of  patience  that 
cannot  be  called  life." 

The  hopelessness  of  the  attachment  was  evident  from 
the  first  meeting.  Keats  had  received  his  death  warrant 
on  that  night  when  he  spat  arterial  blood  on  the  bed  sheets. 
But  the  thought  of  Fanny  Brawne  created  a  new  desire 
for  life.  That  is  the  note  that  runs  through  the  first  and 
the  cheeriest  of  his  letters. 

The  poet  never  enjoyed  a  moment's  happiness  unless 
he  was  by  his  mistress's  side.  The  bitter  thought  that  he 
might  die  without  claiming  her  for  his  own  nearly  drove 
him  mad  with  grief.  "  I  can  bear  to  die,"  he  wrote,  in 
anguish  to  his  friend  Brown.  "  I  cannot  bear  to  leave  her. 
Oh,  God!  God!  Oh,  God!"  Everything  about  him 
that  conjured  up  thoughts  of  her  added  fuel  to  the  fire. 
She  was  always  present  to  his  mind.  Fanny  Brawne  was 
to  him  what  Cynthia  was  to  Endymion ;  she  kept  him 
awake  "  o'  nights  as  a  tune  of  Mozart's  might  do."  She 
was  an  imperial  woman,  whose  very  "  yes  "  or  "  no  "  was 
to  him  a  bouquet.  He  wished  for  death,  as  he  said,  every 

77 


A  Batch  of  Touching  Love  Letters 

night,  but  dreaded  it  because  it  would  take  him  away 
from  her.  He  could  not  conceive  that  there  had  ever  been 
such  love  as  his  in  the  world.  "  All  I  can  bring  to  you," 
he  wrote  in  a  passionate  adoration,  "  is  swooning  admira- 
tion of  your  beauty."  "  I  wish,"  he  says,  in  another  letter, 
"  that  I  were  in  your  arms  full  of  faith,  or  that  a  thunder- 
bolt would  strike  me.  God  bless  you  !  " 


'  Love  he  comes,  and  Love  he  tarries, 
Just  as  fate  or  fancy  carries ; 
Longest  stays,  when  sorest  chidden ; 
Laughs  and  flies,  when  press' d  and  bidden. 

Love's  a  fire  that  needs  renewal 

Of  fresh  beauty  for  its  fuel ; 

Love's  wing  moults  when  caged  and  captured, 

Only  free,  he  soars  enraptured." 

Thomas  Campbell. 


"  Thou  shalt  not  die ;    for  while  love's  fire  shines 
Upon  his  altar,  men  shall  read  thy  lines." 

Herrick. 


IX 

Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


IT  is  often  the  fashion  among  those  who  are  the 
most  curious  to  study  the  heart  of  man  where  the 
heart  of  woman  is  concerned,  to  be  strangely  in- 
dignant at  the  sight  of  another  man's  printed  love  letter. 
They  sternly  reprobate  the  publication  of  such  things  to 
the  world.  "  Let's  have  no  more  chatter  about  Harriet  " — 
that  is  almost  a  commonplace  of  Shelleyian  criticism.  It 
was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  a  big  bundle  of  Shelley's 
love  letters  were  put  up  for  auction  in  a  London  sale  room 
and  sold  to  the  highest  bidder.  That,  one  may  grant,  is 
an  indignity  which  might  have  been  spared  the  poet,  but 
if  we  are  going  to  tell  the  stories  of  great  men,  we  must 
also  tell  the  stories  of  their  great  romances.  And  Shelley 
lived  in  an  atmosphere  of  romance. 

It  has  been  written  that  Shelley  proved  himself  a  pro- 
fligate only  in  a  lesser  degree  than  Byron.  The  story  of 
Shelley's  relations  with  his  women  is  certainly  not  an 
edifying  one.  There  never  lived,  I  suppose,  a  man  more 
changeable  and  uncertain  in  his  affections ;  and  it  is 
doubtful  whether  after  all  his  voyages  in  quest  of  an  ideal 
partner  he  ever  arrived  safely  in  port.  From  the  moment 
he  was  jilted  by  his  cousin,  Harriet  Grove,  until  he  began 
G  81 


Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


to  tire  of  his  second  wife,  Mary,  in  that  lonely  Italian  villa 
to  which  they  retired,  he  was  ever  in  quest  of  a  perfect 
partner.  No  woman  ever  existed  who  for  any  sustained 
period  could  reasonably  satisfy  his  idealised  conception 
of  female  excellence.  He  worshipped  his  idols  for  a  brief 
period,  and  then  smashed  them  up  remorselessly.  It  is  a 
curious  fact  in  relation  to  the  chequered  love  stories  of 
two  of  the  greatest  poets  of  the  last  hundred  years  that 
they  should  have  passed  in  almost  identical  words  a  passion- 
ate eulogy  on  love,  and  more  curious  still  in  the  light  of  the 
cruel  pains  and  penalties  in  which  it  involved  them  both. 
When,  at  eighteen,  Shelley  was  rhapsodising  over  his 
first  love  and  faithless  cousin,  Harriet  Grove,  he  wrote 
to  the  hero-worshipping  Hogg,  afterwards  his  faithful 
biographer : — 

"  What,  then,  shall  happiness  arise  from  ?  Can  we  hesitate — 
Love,  dear  love.  And  though  every  faculty  is  bewildered  by  the 
agony  which  in  this  life  is  its  too  constant  attendant,  still  is  not  that 
very  agony  to  be  preferred  to  the  most  thrilling  sensualities  of 
epicurism  ?  " 

This  sort  of  writing  is  of  the  essence  of  poetic  madness, 
and  no  doubt  the  rather  practical  and  fancy-free  Hogg 
laughed  in  his  sleeve  at  the  severity  of  his  friend's  attack. 
Robert  Burns,  poet  and  amorist,  has  expressed  himself  in 
much  the  same  rhapsodical  style.  Thirty  years  before, 
he  had  apostrophised  love  in  his  grand,  exuberant  manner 
in  his  common-place  book,  adding : — 

"  If  anything  on  earth  deserves  the  name  of  rapture,  it  is  the 
feelings  of  green  eighteen  in  the  company  of  the  mistress  of  his 
heart." 

82 


Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


The  fact  that  there  is  to  be  discovered  also  in  the  history 
of  Byron,  and  again  in  that  of  Keats,  the  same  exultant 
declarations,  and  that  singularly  enough  a  mad  passion 
should  have  brought  tragedy  into  all  their  lives,  is  at  least 
a  remarkable  coincidence.  So  far  as  Shelley  is  concerned 
it  has  been  decreed  by  a  host  of  biographers  that  the 
resplendent  light  of  his  genius  and  his  passionate  devotion 
to  freedom  and  humanity  should  be  counted  as  sufficient 
reparation  for  the  darker  episodes  of  a  rebellious  and  undis- 
ciplined life.  If  this  theory  is  accepted,  we  ought  in 
common  fairness  to  grant  a  dispensation  to  all  geniuses  who 
have  laughed  at  morality  and  defied  the  proprieties.  How 
it  comes  about  that  in  spite  of  a  fulness  of  knowledge 
concerning  Shelley's  life,  the  world  at  large  has  chosen 
to  look  upon  him  with  a  lenient  eye,  whilst  it  lashes  Byron 
and  whispers  reproachfully  of  Burns,  has  never  been 
rationally  explained. 

Shelley's  attachments  to  the  other  sex  were  never  of  long 
duration,  and  the  vigour  with  which  he  repudiated  them 
afterwards  was,  one  exception  always  remaining,  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  enthusiasm  and  zeal  shown  in  their 
cultivation.  More  consistent  apostacy  in  love  was  never 
seen.  Of  Harriet  Shelley,  after  their  marriage,  he  wrote  : — 

"  Let  death  all  mortal  ties  dissolve, 
But  ours  shall  not  be  mortal." 

And  yet  within  three  years,  he  declared  to  Peacock  : — 

"  The  partner  of  my  life  should  be  one  who  can  feel  poetry  and 
understand  philosophy.  Harriet  is  a  noble  animal,  but  she  can  do 
neither." 

83 


Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


To  Miss  Kitchener,  schoolmistress,  Deist,  and  Republi- 
can— soul-partner  and  the  rest,  he  declared  : — 

"  Never  shall  that  intercourse  cease  which  has  been  the  day 
dream  of  my  existence,  the  sun  which  has  shed  warmth  on  the  cold 
drear  length  of  the  anticipated  prospect  of  my  life." 

After  he  had  lived  in  close  proximity  to  the  lady  for 
the  short  space  of  one  year,  the  sun  goes  down,  and  he 
dismisses  her  from  his  household  with  this  eloquent 
comment : — 

"  My  astonishment  at  my  own  fatuity,  inconsistency,  and  bad 
taste  was  never  so  great  as  after  living  for  four  months  with  her  as 
an  inmate.  What  would  Hell  be  were  such  a  woman  in  Heaven  ?  ' ' 

The  same  fate  waited  upon  Emilia  Vivania,  the  pictur- 
esque lady-nun  of  Pisa,  to  whom  the  "  Epipsychidion  "  is 
dedicated  in  lines  of  glowing  admiration : — 

"  Emily,  I  love  thee — tho'  the  world  by  no  thin  name 
Will  hide  that  love  from  its  unvalued  shame." 

The  association  of  this  lady  with  the  poem  robbed  the 
poet  for  once  of  the  rare  joy  of  reading  his  own  composition, 
"  The  Epipsychidion,"  he  said,  "  I  cannot  look  at.  The 
person  whom  it  celebrates  was  a  cloud  instead  of  a  Juno  ; 
and  poor  Ixion  starts  from  the  Centaur  that  was  the  off- 
spring of  his  own  embrace  !  " 

The  man  who  could  root  out  both  love  and  friendship 
in  such  amazingly  quick  time  was  hardly  likely  to  waste 
any  vain  regrets  over  broken  hearts  or  disappointed  affec- 
tions. Hogg,  the  Boswellian  attorney,  whose  unfinished 
life  of  the  poet  is  so  unconsciously  amusing,  relates  how 


Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


in  the  period  immediately  before  they  were  both  expelled 
from  Oxford,  Shelley,  like  his  own  Prince  Athanase,  was 
always  yearning  to  meet  the  ideal  partner  of  his  poetical 
imagination.  He  found  in  the  writing  of  some  wildly 
rhapsodical  and  exceedingly  foolish  romances  a  safety 
valve  for  the  flood  of  sentimentality  which  possessed  him. 
In  "  Zastrozzi,"  and  other  stories  of  the  same  type,  he 
holds  up  the  mirror  to  his  own  unhealthy  mind.  A  note 
of  wild  tumultuous  passion  runs  through  them  all.  The 
heroines  are  creatures  impossible  out  of  Bedlam.  These 
books  were  all  written  to  aid  that  insane  propaganda  against 
the  institution  of  marriage  which  he  always  attacked  with 
such  strange  ferocity,  little  dreaming  that  the  tragedy  of 
his  own  life  was  to  demonstrate  the  futility  of  the  free-love 
doctrine. 

Sir  Timothy  Shelley,  the  poet's  father,  tried  to  reform 
his  son  by  the  common-place  device  of  a  suitable  marriage  ; 
and  the  unpoetical  Hogg  promptly  entered  into  the  spirit 
of  the  thing.  It  was  perhaps  fortunate  for  Hogg's  friend- 
ship for  Shelley  that  the  latter  did  not  hear  the  pair  plotting 
over  their  wine  to  marry  him  off  comfortably.  "  Tell 
me,"  said  the  father,  "  what  do  you  think  I  ought  to  do 
with  my  poor  boy  ?  He  is  rather  wild,  is  he  not  ?  If  he 
had  married  his  cousin  he  would  perhaps  have  been  less 
so.  He  would  have  been  steadier  !  "  Hogg  replied,  "  He 
wants  somebody  to  take  care  of  him — a  good  wife.  What 
if  he  were  married  ?  "  "  But  how  can  I  do  that  ?  It  is 
impossible,"  continued  Sir  Timothy,  with  a  fine  knowledge 
of  his  son.  "  If  I  were  to  write  and  tell  Bysshe  to  marry 
a  girl  he  would  refuse  directly.  I  am  sure  he  would,  I 

85 


Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


know  him  well."  Hogg  smiled  at  the  old  gentleman's 
simplicity,  and  suggested  that  the  poet  should  be  brought 
into  contact  with  a  few  suitable  young  ladies.  Although 
a  list  of  candidates  was  actually  drawn  up  by  Sir  Timothy, 
nothing  more  was  heard  of  the  matter. 

Byron  has  shown  that  there  is  nothing  half  so  fascinating 
to  impressionable  femininity  as  the  spectacle  of  picturesque 
genius  fighting  the  fates.  Shelley,  it  must  not  be  for- 
gotten, was,  according  to  Hogg,  "  pre-eminently  a  lady's 
man  "  ;  his  childish  beauty  and  picturesqueness,  not  less 
than  his  aristocratic  birth,  and  the  fact  that  he  had  been 
outlawed  for  his  opinions,  attracted  the  sympathy  of  the 
fair  sex,  and  that  being  so  no  wonder,  then,  he  captured 
the  heart  of  Harriet  Westbrook,  to  whom  he  wrote  many 
glowing  letters.  The  causes  which  led  up  to  the  parting 
and  the  tragedy  that  followed  it  have  been  discussed  very 
often,  and  are  likely  to  be  discussed  again. 

Shelley  has  been  fortunate  in  escaping  a  gibbeting  such 
as  Henley  gave  Burns.  It  has  been  the  fashion  for  hero- 
worshipping  biographers,  from  Professor  Dowden  down- 
wards, to  string  together  half-a-dozen  trivial  points  of 
difference  between  Shelley  and  his  wife  and  serve  them  up 
as  evidence  that  the  union  of  the  pair  was  marred  by  a 
lack  of  sympathetic  toleration  and  a  total  disregard  on 
the  part  of  Harriet  for  the  prejudices  and  sensibilities  of 
this  "  eternal  child  of  poetry."  According  to  their  view 
of  the  question  the  heroine  of  Shelley's  story  was  not  the 
happy  young  schoolgirl  whose  "  dear  love  gleamed  upon 
the  gloomy  path  "  of  the  poet  before  he  became  famous — 
the  girl  who  worked  diligently  at  her  Latin  in  order  to  be 

86 


Shelley  as  the  Amorist 


intellectually  worthy  of  him,  and  whom  he  deserted  for 
reasons  which  can  never,  to  any  impartial  mind,  appear 
in  the  least  degree  adequate.  That  honour  is  reserved  for 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  the  daughter  of  Godwin,  who  after 
living  with  Shelley  as  long  as  Harriet  was  alive,  promptly 
claimed  the  shelter  of  the  marriage  laws  she  had  so  often 
derided  directly  that  unhappy  creature  had  ended  her  own 
life. 

The  last  chapter  in  the  tragic  and  chequered  life  of 
Shelley  is  the  brightest,  and,  in  spite  of  the  occasional 
clouds,  the  best.  I  have  alluded  to  Shelley's  letters. 
Those  to  Mary  will  bear  reading  by  persons  of  critical 
taste.  They  are  not  marked  by  the  grand  eloquence  and 
the  sweeping  rhetoric  of  Burns,  the  studied  melodrama 
of  Byron,  the  dignity  and  grace  of  Pope,  or  the  prettiness 
of  Swift ;  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  art,  for  they  were 
conceived  in  moments  of  suffering  and  privation  when  the 
temptation  to  sacrifice  truth  and  sincerity  to  passion  or 
fancy  could  not  exist.  But  they  appeal  to  the  heart  and 
are  of  the  essence  of  poetry. 


CONCERNING  SOME  FAMOUS  LOVE 
LETTERS 


"  I  will  drop  in  his  way  some  obscure  epistles  of  love ;  wherein, 
by  the  colour  of  his  beard,  the  shape  of  his  leg,  the  manner  of  his 
gait,  the  expressure  of  his  eye,  forehead,  and  complexion,  he  shall 
find  himself  most  feelingly  personated." 

"  Twelfth  Night." 


Heaven  first  sent  letters  for  some  wretch's  aid — 
Some  banish' d  lover  or  some  captive  maid ; 
They  live,  they  speak,  they  breathe  what  love  inspires, 
Warm  from  the  soul,  and  faithful  to  its  fires." 

Pope. 


X 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love 
Letters 


IT  is  said  that  the  first  letter  ever  composed  was 
the  production  of  Atossa,  a  Persian  Empress ; 
and  having  regard  to  the  sex  of  the  writer,  the 
chances  are  that  it  was  to  a  man,  and  that  man  a  lover. 
Love  letters  are  the  common  attribute  of  every  romance. 
How  many  women  are  there  to  whom  a  little  faded  packet 
of  papers,  hidden  away  in  the  innermost  recesses  of  a 
private  closet,  is  all  that  remains  of  a  grand  passion,  now 
rose-coloured  and  idealised  through  the  mist  of  the  years  ? 
Love  letters  have  been  the  same  in  all  ages.  Their  form 
and  style  may  change  with  the  caprices  of  fashion,  but 
their  appeal  is  unchangeable,  eternal.  They  are  from  one 
man  to  one  woman.  They  are  illogical,  dogmatic,  fearless, 
egotistical ;  and  sometimes  their  note  of  selfish  complacency 
strikes  a  third  party  as  an  indecent  outrage  on  the  rest 
of  the  world.  But  they  are  nearly  always  sincere,  and 
therefore  they  have  a  certain  value  in  the  revelation  of 
character.  Rousseau,  who  is  entitled  to  be  heard  with 
respect  on  this  subject,  once  said  that  to  write  a  good  love 
letter  "  we  must  begin  without  knowing  what  we  mean 
to  say  and  finish  without  knowing  what  we  have  written." 
There  is  no  need  to  limit  the  application  of  this  remark  to 

91 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

the  making  of  love  letters.  A  note  of  spontaneity  and 
any  absence  of  all  the  subtleties  of  calculated  art  are  the 
special  and  distinguishing  characteristics  of  epistolary 
excellence  in  all  its  forms.  But  in  respect  to  what  Gibbon 
has  called  "  letters  of  the  heart,"  those  glowing  effusions 
which  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  head,  and  reflect  only 
the  passions  and  feelings  of  the  moment,  studied  expressions 
and  ambitious  literary  effects  are  wholly  unconvincing. 
We  know,  of  course,  that  the  vanity  of  human  nature  is 
such  that  the  ardent  lover  invariably  sets  out  with  the 
idea  of  creating  an  impression  through  his  letters  ;  and 
to  that  end  he  burns  the  midnight  oil  and  lets  loose  a 
flood  of  rhapsodical  fustian.  Burns,  who  rather  prided 
himself  on  his  skill  as  a  letter-writer,  and  used  to  act  in 
that  capacity  for  many  an  uninspired  Ayrshire  lad,  plagued 
"  Clarinda  "  with  some  of  the  most  extravagant  rhetoric 
that  was  ever  conceived  in  the  brain  of  a  love-sick  poet. 
That  there  are  elegant  love  letters,  the  product  of  elaborate 
care  and  full  of  literary  beauties,  is  undeniable.  Lady 
Mary  Wortley  Montagu's  correspondence  with  her  husband 
will  instantly  recur  to  the  mind.  But  we  must  never  for- 
get that  this  remarkable  woman  was  in  a  sense  abnormal 
and  exempt  from  any  trace  of  sentimentality,  and  that  on 
no  occasion  did  she  ever  allow  her  passions  to  outrun  her 
pen.  As  a  result,  none  of  her  writings  can  fairly  be 
termed  love  letters.  They  rarely  make  an  appeal  to 
the  heart.  All  the  best  love  letters  in  the  world's 
literature,  and  especially  those  written  by  women,  reveal 
their  writer's  thoughts  in  undress :  they  are  free  and 
allusive,  and  gossipy  and  usually  sincere. 

92 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

I  should  say  at  a  venture  that  the  model  love  letter  in  our 
language  will  be  found  where  we  find  all  models  of  excel- 
lence— in  Shakespeare.  Though  Love  is  not  a  logician, 
Falstaff's  letter  to  Mrs.  Page  is  at  once  logical  and  analy- 
tical. It  appeals  to  the  reason  as  strongly  as  it  does  to 
the  passions,  and  it  concludes  with  an  undying  protest  of 

affection  : — 

"Thine  own  true  knight, 
By  day  or  night, 
Or  any  kind  of  light, 
With  all  his  might, 
For  thee  to  fight." 

But  that  letter  was  written  for  Falstaff  by  Shakespeare. 
We  should  like  to  know  what  the  bard  said  to  Ann 
Hathaway  ;  for  logic  and  reason  hold  no  common  cause 
with  passion  in  the  commerce  of  love.  Nowadays  the 
publication  of  love  letters  is  not  regarded  seriously  as  in 
any  sense  a  breach  of  trust  or  a  reflection  on  the  dead. 
To  the  love  letters  of  Pope,  Cowper,  and  Swift  among 
poets  have  been  added  those  of  Shelley,  Keats,  Byron  and 
Browning.  Nelson's  to  Lady  Hamilton  may  now  be  read 
side  by  side  with  Napoleon's  to  Josephine,  and  Bismarck's 
to  his  wife  ;  and  even  Carlyle  has  been  exhibited  in  the 
halycon  days  of  first  love. 

Here  and  there  we  have  a  protest  from  those  who  regard 
all  publishers  as  Philistines.  The  question  has  often  been 
asked  :  Ought  what  is  written  in  the  strictest  confidence 
and  privacy  from  one  person  to  another  to  be  exposed  after 
the  lapse  of  years  to  the  vulgar  gaze  of  the  crowd  and  the 
sacrilegious  treatment  of  the  reviewers  ?  It  depends. 
Often  enough  the  writers  themselves  anticipated  such  a 

93 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

meeting  with  posterity.  Keats  declared  that  those 
passionate  and  pathetic  letters  of  his  to  Miss  Brawne 
might  some  day  see  the  light,  and  yet  when  they  were 
included  in  a  popular  edition  a  few  years  ago,  Mr. 
Sydney  Colvin  said  if  he  read  them  he  should  feel  like  a 
man  who  was  peeping  through  a  keyhole.  But  I  do 
not  suppose  that  any  one  will  deny  that  the  Brawne 
correspondence  is  full  of  exquisite  thoughts,  or  that  it 
serves  to  give  us  a  deeper  understanding  of  the  heart 
of  the  poet. 

In  love  letters,  more  than  any  other  form  of  literature, 
we  may  discover  something  of  the  real  character  and  the 
genuine  emotions  of  men  and  women  who  in  their  lives 
and  writings  are  always  playing  a  part.  The  grim  Napoleon, 
full  of  the  pride  of  conquest,  halts  after  Jena  to  write  a 
love  letter  to  Josephine.  The  letter  has  the  reek  of  the 
battlefield  over  it ;  but  for  the  note  of  human  tenderness 
at  the  foot  it  might  pass  for  an  official  despatch  to  Ver- 
sailles : — 

"  MY  DEAR, — I  have  made  excellent  manoeuvres  against  the 
Prussians.  Yesterday  I  won  a  great  victory.  They  had  150,000 
men.  I  have  made  20,000  prisoners,  taken  100  pieces  of  cannon 
and  flags.  I  was  in  the  presence  of  the  King  of  Prussia,  and  near 
to  him ;  I  nearly  captured  him  and  the  Queen.  For  the  past  two 
days  I  have  bivouacked.  I  am  in  excellent  health. 

"  Adieu  dear.  Keep  well  and  love  me.  If  Hortense  is  at  Mayence 
give  her  a  kiss ;  also  to  Napoleon  and  to  the  little  one." 

But  when  we  set  out  to  consider  the  literary  value  of 
the  world's  most  famous  love  letters,  it  will  be  found  that 
those  which  have  the  soundest  claim  on  our  attention  do 
not  as  a  rule  chronicle  the  record  of  a  single,  calm,  pure, 

94 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

and  unselfish  passion,  nor  are  they  always  free  from  the 
elements  of  pathos  and  tragedy.  There  are  limitations 
even  to  the  endless  variations  which  genius  can  give  to 
the  literary  embodiment  of  a  supreme  passion.  When 
that  passion  is  fixed  and  unalterable,  and  under  its  influence 
the  man  drifts  naturally  into  a  happy  and  undisturbed 
state  of  domestic  felicity,  the  romance  evaporates,  and  the 
story  of  saccharine  blissfulness  is  apt  to  pall  considerably. 
No  man  can  write  a  fine  love  letter  with  his  feet  on  his  own 
fire  irons.  In  other  words  the  tale  of  undivided  happiness 
has  not  much  attraction  for  us.  It  is  in  muddy  waters  that 
most  of  us  delight  to  fish.  Therefore  it  comes  about  that 
Steele's  endearing  little  notes  to  his  second  wife  (which, 
by  the  way,  she  has  been  accused  of  hoarding  up  for  publi- 
cation), and  the  overpowering  sweetness  of  the  Brownings' 
and  the  Wordsworths'  do  not  afford  any  very  great  variety  of 
interest.  The  absence  of  those  obstacles  to  human  felicity 
that  are  created  by  frailties  of  character  and  conduct  leave 
them  almost  devoid  of  dramatic  interest.  Byron  flaunting 
his  intrigues  in  the  face  of  the  world,  and  Burns  philander- 
ing with  Clarinda,  are  more  fascinating  figures  in  the  book 
of  romance  than  any  of  their  more  respectable  contem- 
poraries. But,  the  love  affairs  of  poets  have  never  been 
marked  by  that  calm  and  serenity  which  are  so  destructive 
of  human  interest.  Petrarch  and  Dante  have  not  been  the 
only  pair  who  idealised  loves  away  from  their  own  firesides. 
I  always  remember  the  observation  which  Hogg  records 
in  his  biography  as  made  to  Shelley  : — 

"  How  many  great  poets  like  yourself  could  the  world  bear  to 
have  in  it  at  once  without  being  altogether  ruined  ?  " 

95 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

Like  the  majority  of  his  tribe  Shelley  kicked  over  the 
matrimonial  traces,  and  his  best  love  letters  are  those 
which  he  wrote  to  Mary  Wollstonecraft  before  the  pair 
eloped  from  London.  Byron  was  almost  a  perfect  letter 
writer.  Whatever  may  be  said  against  Byron,  and  how- 
ever shocking  his  profligacies,  it  is  impossible  to  regard  a 
man  as  entirely  bad  who  could  write  such  a  manly  and 
straightforward  letter  as  the  one  to  Lady  Byron,  acknow- 
ledging the  receipt  of  the  hair  of  his  child  Ada.  Lady 
Byron,  having  apparently  made  a  reunion  impossible,  the 
writer  could  say  no  more.  Two  or  three  extracts  from  this 
letter  are  worth  reprinting : — 

"  Recollect,  however,  one  thing  either  in  distance  or  nearness, 
every  day  which  keeps  us  asunder  should,  after  so  long  a  period, 
rather  soften  our  natural  feelings,  which  must  always  have  one 
rallying  point  as  long  as  our  child  exists,  which  I  presume  we  both 
hope  will  be  long  after  either  of  her  parents. 

"  The  time  which  has  elapsed  since  the  separation  has  been  con- 
siderably more  than  the  whole  of  the  period  of  our  union,  and 
the  not  much  longer  one  of  our  prior  acquaintance.  We  both  made 
a  bitter  mistake ;  but  now  it  is  over,  and  irrevocably  so,  for  a 
thirty-three  on  my  part  and  a  few  years  less  on  yours,  though  it 
is  no  very  extended  period  of  life,  still  it  is  one  when  the  habits 
and  thoughts  are  generally  so  forward  as  to  admit  of  no  modifica- 
tion ;  and  as  we  could  not  agree  when  younger  we  should  with 
difficulty  do  so  now.  .  .  .  But  this  very  impossibility  of  reunion 
seems  to  me  at  least  a  reason  why  on  all  the  few  points  of  discussion 
which  can  arise  between  us,  we  should  preserve  the  courtesies  of 
life,  and  as  much  of  its  kindness  as  people  who  are  never  to  meet 
may  preserve  perhaps  more  easily  than  nearer  connexions. 

"  For  my  own  part,  I  am  violent,  but  not  malignant ;  for  only 
fresh  provocations  can  awaken  my  resentments.  To  you,  who  are 
colder  and  more  concentrated,  I  would  just  hint  that  you  may  some- 
times mistake  the  depth  of  a  cold  anger  for  dignity  and  a  worse 
feeling  for  duty.  I  assure  you  that  I  bear  you  now  (whatever  I 

96 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

may  have  done)  no  resentment  whatever.  Remember  if  you  have 
injured  me  in  aught  this  forgiveness  is  something  ;  and  that  if  I 
have  injured  you  it  is  something  more  still,  if  it  be  true  as  the  mora- 
lists say,  that  the  most  offending  are  the  least  forgiving." 

This  is  not  a  love  letter,  but  it  is  the  letter  of  a  man 
who,  whatever  his  failings,  cannot  be  fairly  charged  with 
striving  to  extinguish  the  affection  he  once  felt  for  his 
wife.  The  entanglement  with  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  and 
the  liaison  with  the  Countess  Guiccioli  reveal  Lord  Byron's 
supremacy  in  the  art  of  composing  a  love  letter.  Some  of 
those  to  the  Venetian  must  be  numbered  among  the 
tenderest  and  most  beautiful  in  the  language.  The  Caro- 
line Lamb  connection  ended  on  another  note. 

Burns  was  all  his  life  a  prolific  letter  writer,  and  the 
Clarinda-Sylvander  correspondence  is  the  best  example 
of  his  amatory  style.  The  fascinating  young  ploughman 
poet  had  more  than  one  entanglement  on  hand  when  he 
swam  into  the  ken  of  the  West  Indian  planter's  wife,  and 
began  an  acquaintance  which,  as  the  letters  show,  very 
nearly  ended  in  disaster  for  them  both.  Whether  Burns's 
extravagant  protestations  of  undying  love  were  genuine 
or  not,  matters  very  little.  Clarinda  has  to  share  the 
poet's  affections  with  Ellison  Begbie,  Handsome  Nell, 
Chloris,  and  Peggy  Chalmers.  The  letters  have  no  very 
great  literary  value.  They  smell  of  the  lamp.  Their 
gush  and  rhapsodisings  are  occasionally  grotesque.  For 
love  letters  they  certainly  present  much  variety,  the 
subjects  discussed  between  the  opening  and  closing  de- 
clarations of  passion  including  theology,  books,  poetry, 
and  inevitably  love  and  marriage.  Burns  had  an  idea 
H  97 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

that  he  could  be  platonic  in  his  affections  ;  he  was  the 
last  man  in  the  world  capable  of  restraint.  Mrs.  M'Lehose 
reminded  him  in  one  of  the  first  letters  she  ever  wrote  that 
he  must  be  careful  not  to  pay  his  addresses  to  a  married 
woman.  The  reply  of  Burns  is  a  half-playful  assurance  of 
his  integrity  : — 

"  Pay  my  addresses  to  a  married  woman  !  I  started  as  if  I  had 
seen  the  ghost  of  him  I  had  injured.  I  recollected  my  expressions  ; 
some  of  them  were  indeed,  in  the  law  phrase,  '  habit  and  repute,' 
which  is  being  half  guilty.  I  cannot  possibly  say,  Madam,  whether 
my  heart  might  not  have  gone  astray  a  little ;  but  I  can  declare 
upon  the  honour  of  a  poet  that  the  vagrant  has  wandered  unknown 
to  me.  I  have  a  pretty  handsome  troop  of  follies  of  my  own,  and 
like  some  other  people's  they  are  but  undisciplined  blackguards, 
but  the  luckless  rascals  have  something  like  honour  in  them — they 
would  not  do  a  dishonest  thing." 

Not  many  days  passed  before  these  fine  protestations 
were  forgotten,  and  Burns  was  making  violent  love.  In 
the  following  passage,  which  will  illustrate  his  style  very 
well,  he  imagines  what  would  happen  if  they  could  defy 
the  laws  of  gravitation,  and  fly  away  together  : — 

"  Don't  you  see  us,  hand  in  hand,  or  rather  my  arm  about  your 
lively  waist,  making  our  remarks  on  Sirius,  the  nearest  of  the  fixed 
stars ;  or  surveying  a  comet,  naming  innoxious  by  us  as  we  just 
now  would  mark  the  passing  pomp  of  a  travelling  monarch  ;  or  in  a 
shady  bower  of  Mercury  or  Venus  dedicating  the  hour  to  love,  in 
mutual  converse,  relying  honour,  and  revelling  endearment,  whilst 
the  most  exalted  strains  of  poesy  and  harmony  would  be  the  most 
spontaneous  language  of  our  souls." 

Perhaps  the  most  pathetic  little  volume  of  love  letters 
in  the  language  is  that  containing  the  record  of  Keats' 
passion  for  Fanny  Brawne.  Some  of  these  letters  of  Keats 


Concerning  some  Famous  Love  Letters 

are  not  unworthy  of  a  place  beside  his  poetry.  "  Do  you 
hear  the  thrush  singing  over  the  field  ?  "  he  says  in  one  place. 
"  I  hope  he  was  fortunate  in  his  choice  this  year."  And 
again  : — 

"  Thank  God  I  am  born.  .  .  .  Thank  God  that  you  are  fair  and 
can  love  me  without  being  letter-written  and  sentimentalised  into 
it." 

The  record  of  this  consuming  passion,  as  it  grows  more 
hopeless,  is  indeed  pitiable — the  poet  is  stricken  down 
with  a  sense  of  his  own  impotence,  and  now  and  again 
there  runs  through  his  letters  a  selfish  and  querulous  note. 
I  would  give  one  more  quotation  : — 

"  I  cannot  be  happier  away  from  you.  'Tis  richer  than  an  argosy 
of  Pearles.  Do  not  threat  me,  even  in  jest.  I  have  been  astonished 
that  men  could  die  martyrs  for  religion — I  have  shuddered  at  it. 
I  shudder  no  more — I  could  be  martyred  for  my  religion — love  is 
my  religion — I  could  die  for  that." 


99 


XI 


"  Keep  my  letters,  they  will  be  as  good  as  Madame  de  Sevigne's 
forty  years  hence." 

Lady  Mary  Worthy  Montagu  to  her  daughter. 


XI 

The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 


IN  an  age  when  people  write  few  letters  and  read 
less,  there  is  good  reason  to  suppose  that  Lady 
Mary  Wortley  Montagu's  remarkable  correspond- 
ence stands  in  danger  of  neglect,  even  by  the  lovers 
of  good  literature.  That  would  be  a  great  pity,  for,  as 
Carlyle  once  observed  in  an  eloquent  appreciation,  she 
"  deserves  to  be  remembered  as  the  first  Englishwoman 
who  combined  the  knowledge  of  classical  and  modern 
literature  with  a  penetrating  judgment  and  a  correct  taste." 
All  things  considered,  she  is  something  of  a  prodigy.  She 
began  to  practise  the  art  of  letter  writing,  as  Richardson 
did,  before  she  was  out  of  her  teens,  and  the  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Wortley  Montagu,  with  whom  she  afterwards 
eloped,  has  probably  never  been  equalled  by  a  young  lady 
of  twenty.  It  is  not  with  the  bold  and  unconventional 
attitude  of  the  writer  towards  the  question  of  marriage, 
and  her  defiance  of  the  social  customs  of  the  day,  that  I 
have  any  concern.  That  was  remarkable  enough,  but  it 
belongs  to  the  region  of  biography.  These  letters  are 
models  of  literary  grace,  and  full  of  a  wit  and  understanding 
that  one  would  frankly  hesitate  to  place  to  the  credit  of 
so  young  a  writer. 

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Mr.  Wortley  Montagu,  who  encountered  the  young  lady 
casually  at  his  sister's  house,  was  a  man  considerably  her 
senior,  and  at  the  time  the  acquaintance  began  had  an 
acknowledged  position  as  a  scholar  and  the  friend  of  the 
best  writers  of  the  day.  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  fell 
deeply  in  love  with  Lady  Mary,  but  he  seems  to  have  had 
fears  about  making  her  his  wife.  The  correspondence 
which  took  place  before  the  elopement  reveals  him  in  the 
light  of  a  lover  who  does  not  really  know  his  own  mind 
for  long  together.  He  must  have  reiterated  avowals  of 
affection  and  devotion,  and  it  is  this  half-doubting,  querulous 
attitude  on  his  part  that  gives  the  intercourse  something 
more  than  a  merely  sentimental  interest,  and  reveals 
Lady  Mary's  talents  as  a  writer.  There  are  few  women 
loving  a  man  as  she  loved  Mr.  Montagu  who  would  have 
written  to  him  with  such  frankness. 

This  desire  to  bring  about  a  perfect  understanding  be- 
fore marriage,  and  to  be  perfectly  sure  of  her  lover's  views 
as  well  as  her  own  on  so  momentous  a  step,  afforded  her 
much  greater  scope  and  freedom  in  writing.  And  her  letters 
are  really  altogether  too  dignified  and  too  full  of  masculine 
understanding  to  be  placed  in  the  category  of  love  letters. 
In  no  place  do  we  find  any  passionate  declarations  of  love, 
nor  any  of  the  sentimental  fustian  that  is  common  to  this 
kind  of  writing  in  all  languages.  "  Ignorance  and  folly," 
she  says  in  one  of  the  first  letters,  "  are  thought  the  best 
foundations  for  virtue,  as  if  not  knowing  what  a  good  wife 
is  was  necessary  to  make  them  so.  I  confess  that  can  never 
be  my  way  of  reasoning ;  as  I  always  forgive  an  injury 
when  I  think  it  not  done  out  of  malice,  I  can  never  think 

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myself  obliged  by  what  is  done  without  design.  Give  me 
leave  to  say^it  (I  know  it  sounds  vain),  I  know  how  to  make 
a  man  of  sense  happy  ;  but  then  that  man  must  resolve 
to  contribute  something  towards  it  himself." 

Poor  Mr.  Montagu  seems  to  have  had  a  partiality  for 
the  conventional  methods  of  courtship,  and  his  protests 
led  to  another  letter  on  the  same  lines  that  I  cannot  resist 
quoting  : — 

"  Happiness  is  the  natural  design  of  all  the  world ;  and  every- 
thing we  see  done  is  meant  in  order  to  attain  it.  My  imagination 
places  it  in  friendship.  By  friendship,  I  mean  an  entire  com- 
munication of  thoughts,  wishes,  interests,  and  pleasures  long  un- 
divided ;  a  mutual  esteem  which  naturally  carries  with  it  a  pleasing 
sweetness  of  conversation,  and  terminates  in  the  desire  of  making 
one  or  another  happy  without  being  forced  to  run  into  visits,  noise, 
and  hurry,  which  serve  to  rather  trouble  than  to  compose  the 
thoughts  of  any  reasonable  creature. 

"...  I  take  you  to  have  sense  enough  not  to  think  this  scheme 
romantic ;  I  rather  choose  to  use  the  word  friendship  than  love, 
because  in  the  general  sense  that  word  is  spoken  it  signifies  a  passion 
rather  founded  on  fancy  than  reason ;  and  when  I  say  friendship, 
I  mean  a  mixture  of  tenderness  and  esteem,  and  which  a  long 
acquaintance  increases  not  decays ;  how  far  I  deserve  such  a 
friendship,  I  can  be  no  judge  of  myself." 

This  is  an  admirable  definition  of  the  ideal  marriage,  and 
yet  by  the  irony  of  circumstance  the  woman  who  could 
realise  it  so  well  in  her  own  mind,  and  make  it  plain  to  the 
world,  failed  to  profit  by  her  knowledge.  These  letters 
contain  many  more  passages  of  equal  reason  and  discern- 
ment expressed  in  the  same  felicitous  language,  and  in  some 
cases  set  off  by  a  playful  wit  and  a  quiet  note  of  sarcasm. 

But  Lady  Mary's  claim  to  be  regarded  as  the  first  woman 

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The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

letter  writer  in  the  language  must  be  based  on  the  remark- 
able correspondence  with  her  only  daughter,  Lady  Bute. 
And  before  discussing  the  high  literary  merit  and  the  rare 
judgment  and  knowledge  of  the  world  displayed  in  these 
letters  let  us  turn  aside  to  say  that  as  a  contribution  to  the 
perplexing  enigma  of  Lady  Mary's  life  and  conduct,  they 
are  of  superlative  importance.  They  must  prove  one  of 
two  things  :  either  that  she  was  a  consummate  hypocrite 
on  all  questions  of  character  and  morals,  or  that,  as  we 
believe,  Horace  Walpole  and  the  rest  of  her  detractors  did 
not  hesitate  to  amplify  and  distort  every  scrap  of  malicious 
gossip  for  the  sake  of  gratifying  a  personal  spite.  The  tone 
of  these  letters  is  irreproachable  ;  they  are  overflowing 
with  wise  and  exemplary  precepts,  which  the  writer  owns 
in  a  spirit  of  becoming  modesty  she  has  striven  her  utmost 
at  all  times  to  carry  out.  There  is  not  a  single  harsh  word 
against  the  husband  from  whom  she  is  so  mysteriously 
separated.  On  the  contrary,  he  is  invariably  spoken  of 
with  admiration  and  affection.  Comparisons  are  some- 
times made  between  the  writings  of  Lady  Mary  and  her 
rival,  if  not  her  superior  in  many  respects, — Madame  de 
Sevigne.  In  reality,  vital  considerations  of  temperament 
and  upbringing,  to  say  nothing  of  marked  intellectual 
differences,  render  such  comparisons  entirely  unprofitable. 
Madame  de  Sevigne  was  a  gifted  and  vivacious  gossip, 
who  in  everything  she  wrote  to  her  child  was  governed  by 
the  heart  and  not  the  head.  She  was  in  fact  the  very 
antithesis  of  Lady  Mary,  who  whilst  no  one  can  question 
her  love  for  her  children — as  shown  by  the  efforts  she  made 
to  redeem  a  blackguardly  son — abhorred  sentimentality, 

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The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

and  adopted  towards  them  the  attitude  of  an  impartial 
moral  guide.  They  had  the  benefit  of  her  wide  experience 
of  the  world,  plainly,  and  sometimes  rather  too  frankly 
expressed,  and  she  was  content  with  an  appeal  solely  to 
the  understanding. 

Lady  Bute  was  well  and  happily  married  when  this 
famous  correspondence  with  her  mother  began.  Not 
unnaturally,  therefore,  it  turned  largely  upon  the  education 
and  training  of  the  daughter's  children.  Lady  Mary's 
own  childhood,  and  her  subsequent  experience  of  the  kind 
of  life  which  lay  before  the  sons  and  daughters  of  a  noble 
family,  fitted  her  to  speak  with  authority.  Probably  if 
she  had  not  been  blessed  with  granddaughters  herself, 
Lady  Mary  would  have  made  it  in  her  way  to  bestow  else- 
where the  results  of  her  observations  on  the  training  of 
the  young.  She  had  something  of  the  passion  of  Lord 
Chesterfield  for  adolescence.  She  was  one  of  the  pioneers 
of  women's  rights,  or  perhaps  it  were  better  to  say  no  one 
before  her  had  attacked  with  such  vigour  and  sincerity 
the  prevalent  notion  that  her  sex,  as  Lord  Byron  once  said, 
ought  to  be  left  to  keep  house  and  wait  on  their  lords. 
But  she  was  not  a  blue-stocking.  Her  detestation  of  that 
type  of  female  was  as  strong  as  Dean  Swift's,  and  she  held, 
moreover,  that  a  wife  should  implicitly  obey  her  husband 
in  all  things.  The  point  she  emphasised  over  and  over 
again  in  her  letters  was  that  without  culture  and  a  love  of 
reading  women  were  not  only  handicapped  in  social  life, 
but  fell  into  idle  and  dissolute  ways.  Much  as  she  differed 
from  Swift,  whom  she  once  likened  to  Caligula,  Lady 
Mary  would  have  endorsed  every  word  of  that  dignitary's 

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The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

admirable  "  Letter  to  a  Young  Lady  on  her  Marriage." 
"  I  could,"  she  says  in  one  place,  "  give  many  examples 
of  ladies  whose  ill-conduct  has  been  notorious,  which  has 
been  owing  to  that  ignorance,  which  has  exposed  them  to 
idleness  which  is  justly  called  the  mother  of  mischief. 
There  is  nothing  so  like  the  education  of  a  woman  of  quality 
as  that  of  a  Prince ;  they  are  taught  to  dance  and  the 
exterior  part  of  what  is  called  good  breeding,  which,  if 
they  attain,  they  are  extraordinary  creatures  in  their 
kind  and  have  all  the  accomplishments  required  by  their 
directors." 

Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  like  Dr.  Johnson,  was,  as 
some  one  has  said,  as  much  at  home  among  books  as  a  stable- 
boy  among  horses.  She  was  a  wonderful  reader,  and  per- 
haps that  is  one  reason  why  she  wrote  so  well.  There 
have  been  many  noble  and  eloquent  tributes  paid  to  the 
aristocracy  of  books,  but  none  I  think  has  ever  excelled 
this  one  by  Lady  Mary  : — 

"  I  wish  your  daughter  to  resemble  me  in  nothing  but  the  love 
of  reading,  knowing  by  experience  how  far  it  is  capable  of  softening 
the  cruelest  accidents  of  life ;  even  the  happiest  cannot  be  passed 
over  without  many  uneasy  hours ;  and  there  is  no  remedy  so  easy 
as  books,  which,  if  they  do  not  give  cheerfulness,  at  least  restore 
quiet  to  the  most  troubled  mind." 

It  was  Rousseau,  solitary  and  melancholy  mortal,  who 
discovered  that  books  were  never  out  of  place — even  at  the 
dinner-table.  "  I  devour  alternately  a  page  and  a  morsel. 
It  seems,"  he  adds,  "  as  if  my  book  were  dining  with  me." 

Lady  Mary  was  as  she  described  herself — a  "  rake  "  in 
reading ;  she  read  everything  from  the  trivial  tale  of  the 

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The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

kitchen  wench's  wooing  to  the  Latin  authors,  and  at  twenty 
translated  the  Enchiridion  of  Epictetus.  Arriving  at  her 
Italian  castle  late  one  night,  she  found  Richardson's 
latest  novel  awaiting  her,  and  sat  up  till  next  morning 
to  finish  it.  The  vogue  of  the  first  of  English  novelists 
was  at  its  height  during  the  period  of  the  remarkable 
correspondence  with  which  we  are  dealing.  The  woes 
of  "  Clarissa "  and  the  vicissitudes  of  "  Pamela "  had 
moved  countless  thousands  of  women  to  tears,  and  wafted 
the  incense  of  their  praise  to  the  little  back  sitting-room  of 
the  plebeian  publisher  and  author.  The  wonderful  genius 
of  this  unlettered  letter  writer  triumphed  over  the  unsenti- 
mental Lady  Mary,  and  with  all  her  hatred  of  stories  that 
encouraged  young  people  "  to  hope  for  impossible  events  " 
and  "  legacies  from  unknown  relations  and  generous 
benefactors  to  distressed  virtue,"  we  find  her  writing  : — 

"  This  Richardson  is  a  strange  fellow.  I  heartily  despise  him, 
and  eagerly  read  him,  nay,  sob  over  his  works  in  a  most  scandalous 
manner.  The  first  two  lines  of  '  Clarissa  '  touched  me  as  being  very 
resembling  to  my  maiden  days ;  and  I  find  in  the  pictures  of  Sir 
Thomas  Grandison  and  his  lady  what  I  have  heard  of  my  mother 
and  seen  of  my  father." 

In  the  matter  of  reading  the  weakness  of  the  eighteenth 
century  young  lady  for  the  utterly  frivolous  and  unreal 
stories  of  sentiment  was  as  pronounced  as  it  is  to-day, 
and  such  productions  Lady  Mary  warmly  attacked  in  her 
letters  to  her  daughter.  To  these  she  preferred  even  the 
Rabelaisian  humour  of  Fielding  and  Smollett,  or  the  piquant 
autobiographies  of  Court  mistresses.  Her  comments  upon 
some  of  the  works  of  this  class  for  penetration  and  sound 

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The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

judgment,  easy  grace,  vivacity,  and  humour  take  rank  with 
the  best  contributions  to  literary  criticism  in  the  whole 
range  of  letters. 

"  I  thank  God,"  she  says,  "  my  taste  still  continues  for 
the  gay  part  of  reading."  One  lengthy  letter  of  hers, 
containing  a  description  of  an  Italian  lady's  indiscretion 
on  the  lines  of  Byron's  Donna  Julia,  although  not  perhaps 
desirable  for  family  reading,  is  remarkable  for  its  wit  and 
humour,  and  if  here  and  there  its  coarseness  offends,  we 
must  not  forget  that  the  fashion  of  the  time  permitted 
such  freedom  both  in  speech  and  writing.  Moreover, 
Lady  Mary's  comments  on  the  folly  and  sin  of  the  wife  are 
unimpeachable. 

Lady  Mary  could  pass  with  perfect  ease  from  a  light  and 
playful  disquisition  on  the  follies  and  frivolities  of  the  time 
to  a  philosophic  soliloquy  on  the  state  of  old  age  and  the 
impossibility  of  happiness  divorced  from  virtue.  To  us 
who  live  in  an  age  when  letter  writing  is  dead  this  remark- 
able correspondence  from  a  woman  nearing  the  allotted 
span  of  life  can  never  fail  to  be  a  cause  of  wonder.  Such 
inexhaustible  variety  of  fancy,  such  eloquence  of  style, 
and  such  sound  understanding  seldom  reveal  themselves 
in  an  old  woman,  and  few  indeed  are  the  writings  of  this 
class  that  will  bear  reading  and  re-reading,  for  the  sake 
of  the  sound  wisdom  they  embody.  In  spite  of  the  fact 
that  Lady  Bute  destroyed  her  mother's  journal,  containing 
the  material  on  which  most  of  the  Constantinople  and 
other  letters  were  based,  it  is  impossible  to  think  of  her 
otherwise  than  as  a  clever  woman.  Lady  Mary  would  not 
have  written  such  letters  to  a  fool. 

no 


The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

If  the  writings  to  which  I  have  just  alluded  were  not 
sufficient  to  establish  Lady  Mary's  supremacy  in  this 
branch  of  literature,  there  stand  to  her  credit  the  letters 
she  founded  on  her  experiences  during  her  husband's 
Embassy  to  Constantinople. 

The  authenticity  of  many  of  these  letters  is  one  of  the 
most  perplexing  problems  that  has  ever  engaged  the 
attention  of  literary  experts.  To  these  we  may  leave  the 
barren  and  unprofitable  task  of  analysing  and  estimating 
the  comparative  worth  of  the  many  flimsy  and  indefinite 
statements  which  have  been  put  forward  on  both  sides. 
We  have  the  letters  themselves,  and  that  is  the  great 
thing.  No  one  who  has  dipped  into  their  pages  can  deny 
that  they  are  rich  in  entertainment,  and  models  of  what 
easy  and  elegant  writing  should  be.  If  those  which  contain 
the  somewhat  saucy  and  piquant  description  of  the  hidden 
mysteries  of  the  harem  were  the  work  of  a  literary  forger, 
then  it  only  remains  to  be  said  that  the  fidelity  displayed 
in  counterfeiting  Lady  Mary's  hand  almost  justifies  us  in 
forgiving  the  culprit.  There  is  another  aspect  of  the  case 
that  must  not  be  overlooked.  None  of  the  editors  of  Lady 
Mary's  works  has  ever  pretended  that  these  letters  were 
received  as  they  are  printed,  or  that  they  are  to  be  regarded 
in  any  other  light  than  as  a  work  of  travel  thrown  into  the 
epistolary  form  because  that  was  the  medium  in  which 
the  author  most  excelled.  They  were  carefully  compiled 
from  a  diary  kept  during  the  journey  in  the  East,  and 
beyond  a  merely  homely  reference  or  two  at  the  opening 
or  at  the  close,  introduced  for  the  sake  of  verisimilitude, 
the  contents  consist  entirely  of  descriptions  of  the  countries 

III 


The  Greatest  Woman  Letter  Writer 

through  which  the  writer  passed,  the  peoples  she  mingled 
with,  and  the  views  she  formed  of  their  habits  and  situation. 

Lady  Mary  was  an  epistolary  artist  who  wrote  a  letter  as 
an  artist  painted  a  picture.  It  is  true  that  all  her  writings 
read  as  though  she  wrote  without  constraint  or  hindrance 
of  any  kind.  All  good  letters  read  like  that ;  but  the  form 
and  the  structure,  the  felicitous  phrasing  and  the  gay  and 
vivacious  atmosphere  which  pervades  them  are  the  outcome 
of  calculated  art. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  most  of  these  letters  from  the 
East,  although  dated  and  addressed  to  various  corres- 
pondents in  the  usual  way,  were  built  up  by  Lady  Mary  at 
her  leisure  after  the  fashion  of  a  work  of  fiction  ;  and 
pursuing  the  methods  of  the  literary  artificer  Lady  Mary 
employed  all  her  resources  to  make  them  perfect  as  literary 
exercises.  Judged,  therefore,  as  examples  of  spontaneous 
and  ready-made  correspondence  they  must  not  be.  But  we 
can  read  them  as  letters  and  literature,  knowing  that  with 
a  lifetime  of  leisure,  few,  if  any,  writers  could  produce  their 
equal. 


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XII 
FOUR   LETTERS    THAT    WILL   LIVE 


"  My  blessing  on  a  full  letter.     It  has  so  friendly  a  look." 

Carlyle. 


XII 

Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


THE  writing  of  a  handsome  letter  is  not  nowa- 
days regarded  as  a  very  valuable  accomplish- 
ment. Men  and  women  who  in  all  ages  have 
been  ready  to  seize  upon  the  least  pretence  for  not  writing 
to  their  friends  may  now  find  excuses  multiplied  to  their 
hands.  Dr.  Johnson  once  remarked  in  a  letter  to  Boswell 
that  he  had  no  patience  with  the  type  of  letter  writers 
who  had  nothing  more  important  to  tell  his  friend  than 
that  he  was,  or  that  he  was  not,  well,  that  he  had,  or  had 
not,  been  in  the  country.  But  Dr.  Johnson  did  not  live 
in  the  days  of  a  garrulous  journalism,  which  leaves  the 
average  scribbler  little  else  to  write  about.  Now  an 
excellent  letter  can  of  course  be  written  about  simply 
nothing,  as  Charles  Lamb  showed  in  that  delightfully 
quaint  introduction  to  Barren  Field  with  which  he  furnished 
a  friend  who  was  going  out  as  a  missionary  to  Botany  Bay. 
Three  lines  contain  all  there  is  to  be  said  about  the  mis- 
sionary ;  as  for  the  rest  of  the  letter,  it  is  a  brilliant  piece 
of  humorous  improvisation,  full  of  droll,  fantastical  irre- 
levances. "  Have  you  got  a  theatre  f  "  he  asks.  "  What 
pieces  are  performed  ?  Shakespeare's,  I  suppose ;  not 
so  much  for  the  poetry  as  for  his  having  once  been  in  danger 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


of  leaving  his  country  on  account  of  certain  small  deer. 
Have  you  any  poets  among  you  ?  Damn'd  plagiarists,  I 
fancy,  if  you  have  any.  I  would  not  trust  an  idea  or  a 
pocket-handkerchief  of  mine  among  'em." 

I  know  people  to  whom  this  sort  of  writing,  like  the 
inimitable  letter  of  Lord  Byron's  to  the  editor  of  "  My 
Grandmother's  Review,"  will  not  make  the  least  appeal. 
They  want  facts,  not  fantasy  ;  and  there  are  so  many 
newspapers  in  the  world  that  no  fact  of  any  very  great 
moment  is  allowed  to  ripen  twenty-four  hours  for  the 
letter  writer.  The  indifference  to  the  epistolary  form  is 
equally  pronounced  in  literary  circles.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  last  century  letter  writing  showed  signs  of  losing  its 
place  as  one  of  the  polite  arts.  The  traditions  of  Swift  and 
Pope  and  Johnson  and  Chesterfield  were  to  some  extent 
preserved  for  us  by  Fitzgerald  and  Carlyle  and  Matthew 
Arnold,  but  where  are  their  successors  ?  Occasionally  Lord 
Morley  or  Lord  Rosebery  or  Mr.  Balfour  sits  down  to  write 
a  letter  "  for  publication,"  and  we  are  reminded  of  the 
glories  of  other  days.  But  such  letters  are  only  rare  enough 
to  emphasise  our  poverty.  At  the  same  time  one  must  not 
forget  that  the  giants  of  the  letter  writing  age  took  up 
their  pens  with  reluctance,  and  if  they  wrote  a  great  deal 
more  and  a  great  deal  better  than  any  one  does  to-day,  it 
was  because  letter  writing  was  as  much  an  imperative  social 
obligation  then  as  paying  afternoon  calls  is  to-day.  None 
of  the  best  writers  among  them  really  confessed  to  any  great 
relish  of  the  task.  The  spontaneity,  the  polish,  the  amazing 
vivacity  may  lead  one  to  think  otherwise,  but  when  genius 
writes  at  all  it  must  need  write  well ;  and  men  who  were 

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Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


not  in  any  sense  geniuses  had  been  taught  that  to  spend 
an  hour  or  two  over  the  composition  of  a  letter  was  a 
wholesome  mental  discipline.  Yet  they  were  plagued  and 
worried  by  their  correspondence  two  hundred  or  a  hundred 
years  ago  pretty  much  as  we  are  to-day.  They  discovered 
all  sorts  of  excuses  for  not  taking  up  the  pen.  Any  one 
who  cares  to  run  through  a  typical  batch  of  the  letters  of 
Johnson  or  Goldsmith  or  Lamb  will  find  how  commonly 
these  experts  fell  back  on  the  popular  plea  that  their  reason 
for  not  writing  was  that  there  was  nothing  to  write  about. 
If  so  long  as  the  world  wags  that  excuse  must  be  held  to 
be  no  excuse  at  all  there  was  surely  more  reason  for  saying 
so  a  century  or  two  ago  than  there  is  to-day. 

The  flood-tide  of  epistolary  scribbling  is  reached  in  the 
cases  of  most  men  and  women  when  they  fall  in  love,  and 
the  finest  letters  are  those  addressed  by  men  to  women  and 
by  women  to  men.  Lord  Chesterfield's  letters  to  his  son 
are  a  notable  exception,  but  if  any  one  ventured  to  deny 
my  conclusion  by  quoting  Lady  Mary  Montagu's  corres- 
pondence with  Lady  Bute,  or  Dr.  Johnson's  letters  to 
Boswell,  I  should  remind  the  critic  of  the  existence  of 
Lady  Mary's  remarkable  letters  to  her  future  husband,  and 
the  doctor's  genial  and  playful  little  notes  to  Mrs.  Thrale. 
We  have  none  of  Dr.  Johnson's  love  letters,  but  if  he  ever 
wrote  any  they  must  have  been  good  reading. 

Byron  once  said  that  he  never  wrote  a  line  till  he  was  in 
love  ;  and  Burns,  under  the  influence  of  the  same  passion, 
squandered  a  shilling  he  could  ill  afford  on  a  tradesman's 
complete  letter  writer.  And  what  graceful  and  dignified 
and  leisurely  letters  were  exchanged  by  the  lovers  in 

117 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


the  old  days  !  Richardson,  perhaps  the  most  incurable 
scribbler  that  ever  lived,  gathered  round  him  a  "  flower- 
bed of  ladies,"  to  whom  he  wrote  volumes  about  "  Clarissa," 
and  "  Sir  Charles  Grandison,"  and  that  rude  fellow  Fielding. 
Where  nowadays  can  we  match  Cowper's  letters  to  Mrs. 
Unwin,  or  Swift's  to  Stella  ? 

Every  one  who  can  appreciate  the  eighteenth-century 
passion  for  a  good  letter  ought  to  be  able  to  lay  claim  to  a 
well-scored  copy  of  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu's  corres- 
pondence. In  such  a  copy  we  should  expect  to  find  a  note 
of  admiration  written  opposite  to  that  almost  perfect 
example  of  the  reply  complimentary  to  be  found  in  the 
whole  range  of  epistolary  literature — the  acknowledgment 
to  the  Earl  of  Stafford  for  a  slight  service  he  had  performed 
for  Lady  Mary.  The  letter  will  always  bear  reprinting  : — 

"  MY  LORD, — You  know  how  to  do  the  most  obliging  thing  in 
the  most  obliging  manner.  In  telling  me  that  I  have  given  you 
pleasure  you  do  not  only  take  from  me  the  shame  of  being  trouble- 
some, but  have  found  a  way  to  make  me  pleased  with  myself,  since  I 
can  never  employ  my  time  more  to  my  own  satisfaction  than  in 
showing  your  Lordship  that  I  am,  with  the  utmost  gratitude  and 
esteem,  my  Lord, 

"  Your  Lordship's  most  obedient  humble  servant." 

It  is  necessary  to  read  this  letter  through  more  than  once 
to  admire  thoroughly  the  ingenuity  of  the  reasoning  and 
the  verbal  dexterity  with  which  it  is  expressed.  How 
many  women  would  ever  have  thought  of  seizing  upon  the 
careless  formality  of  Lord  Stafford's  reply,  and  interpreting 
it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  leave  her  benefactor  convinced 
that  if  there  was  any  obligation  at  all,  then  it  was  on  his 

118 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


side  ?     Yet  Lady  Mary  affected   to  despise  letter  writing 
by  women. 

"  As  to  writing — that  any  woman  would  do  who  thought  she  writ 
well.  Now  I  say  no  woman  of  common  sense  would.  At  best  'tis 
but  doing  a  silly  thing  well,  and  I  think  it  is  much  better  not  to  do 
a  silly  thing  at  all." 

This  from  the  woman  who  probably  with  one  single  ex- 
ception— and  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that  either — wrote  better 
than  any  of  her  sex  had  ever  done  before  or  have  ever  done 
since,  and  who,  whatever  Pope  might  have  thought,  could 
give  him  a  beating  and  a  good  deal  to  spare. 

To  encounter  over  and  ever  again  a  letter  one  admires 
greatly,  must  lead  sooner  or  later  to  comparisons.  There 
are  some  letters  that  will  endure  as  long  as  the  language, 
and  two  of  the  most  notable  ones  belong  to  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Perhaps  the  noblest  and  manliest  piece  of  composition 
in  the  whole  of  Dr.  Johnson's  writings  is  that  famous  letter 
in  which  the  author  of  "  Rasselas  "  declined  to  accept  the 
belated  patronage  of  the  Earl  of  Chesterfield.  No  one 
admired  the  art  of  letter  writing  more  than  this  exemplar 
of  good  manners.  It  was  one  of  the  accomplishments  he 
urged  upon  his  stupid  son,  in  a  series  of  letters  that  Sainte- 
Beuve  says  are  the  best  things  in  our  language,  and  of 
which  Voltaire  wrote :  "  Je  ne  sais  si  ce  n'est  pas  le 
meilleur  livre  d'education  qu'on  ait  jamais  fuit." 

There  can  be  no  greater  contrast  in  point  of  style  than 
exists  between  the  letters  of  these  two  men.  The  funda- 
mental differences  which  separated  them  on  moral  ques- 

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Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


tions  have  been  embodied  in  an  epigram  that  is  as  pitiless 
in  its  savagery  as  it  is  inimitable  in  its  terseness. 

Dr.  Johnson  was  not  an  epistolary  gossip,  nor  a  mentor 
of  manners,  and  except  in  occasional  letters  to  Mrs.  Thrale 
in  a  domestic  vein,  he  writes  of  serious  affairs  in  a 
serious  way,  always  maintaining  that  lofty  and  dignified 
style  that  we  call  "  Johnsonese."  He  is  always  under  a 
temptation  to  get  into  the  pulpit  and  preach,  and  especially 
when  his  correspondent  is  Boswell.  Whatever  Boswell's 
failings,  like  young  Stanhope,  it  could  not  be  said  that  he 
lacked  advice. 

Johnson  wrote  his  finest  letters,  as  he  made  his  best 
epigrams,  under  the  influence  of  strong  passion,  or  when 
suffering  from  a  fancied  wrong.  The  circumstances  which 
provoked  the  Chesterfield  letter,  so  proud  and  sad,  and 
yet  so  noble  in  its  sincerity,  have  been  discussed  from  all 
points  of  view.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  whether  the  peer 
was  treated  quite  fairly  by  his  "  Hottentot "  dictionary- 
maker  or  not,  most  people  would  rather  they  had  been 
enemies  a  thousand  times  over  than  that  the  world  should 
have  been  deprived  of  that  letter.  But  Johnson  returned 
to  the  charge  so  often  and  had  so  much  to  say  concerning 
the  ingratitude  of  patrons  that  one  cannot  help  thinking 
that  he  must  have  been  badly  treated.  The  author  of 
"  Rasselas  "  was  not  a  proud  and  vindictive  man  ;  no  one 
would  have  been  more  conscious  of  the  honour  of  Lord 
Chesterfield's  patronage  had  it  been  given  at  the  time  he 
waited  in  the  lobby  of  that  nobleman's  house,  only  to  see 
Colley  Gibber  granted  a  privilege  which  was  denied  to  him. 
The  reparation,  if  it  was  any  reparation  at  all,  came  too 

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Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


late  ;  the  dictionary  was  carried  through,  as  Johnson  says, 
in  a  passage  both  grand  and  impressive  in  the  stately  march 
of  its  English  : — 

"  Not  in  the  soft  obscurities  of  retirement,  or  under  the  shelter 
of  academic  bowers,  but  amidst  inconvenience  and  distraction  ;  in 
sickness  and  in  sorrow,  and  without  the  patronage  of  the  Great." 

Johnson's  wound  was  not  to  be  salved  over  by  gold  or 
flattery.  He  did  not  go  to  Chesterfield  in  the  first  instance 
for  either.  He  sought  the  encouragement  of  a  powerful 
patron  for  the  sake  of  the  work  and  its  prospects,  and  he 
never  forgot  that  it  was  the  work  that  had  been  slighted. 
Sir  Thos.  Robinson  was  sent  by  the  Earl  to  bring  about  a 
reconciliation,  and  he  is  reported  to  have  assured  Johnson 
that  had  his  income  permitted  it,  he  would  have  settled 
.£500  a  year  on  the  author.  "  Sir,"  replied  Johnson,  "  if 
the  first  peer  in  the  realm  were  to  make  me  such  an  offer, 
I  would  show  him  the  way  downstairs."  Chesterfield  also 
sent  j£ioo  to  the  doctor,  which  he  returned,  adding  to  a 
friend,  "  Sir,  I  found  I  must  have  gilded  a  rotten  post." 

This  famous  letter  which  I  set  out  to  praise  has  a  cynical 
ring  about  it  not  usual  in  Johnson's  writings.  "  Is  not  a 
patron,  my  lord,"  he  asks,  "  one  who  looks  with  unconcern 
on  a  man  struggling  for  life  in  the  water,  and  when  he  has 
reached  ground  encumbers  him  with  help  ?  The  notice 
which  you  have  been  pleased  to  take  of  my  labours,  had 
it  been  early  had  been  kind  ;  but  it  has  been  delayed  till  I 
am  indifferent,  and  cannot  enjoy  it ;  till  I  am  solitary,  and 
cannot  impart  it ;  till  I  am  known,  and  do  not  want  it. 
I  hope  it  is  no  very  cynical  asperity  not  to  confess  obliga- 

121 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


tions  where  no  benefit  has  been  received,  or  to  be  unwilling 
that  the  publick  should  consider  me  as  owing  that  to  a 
patron,  which  Providence  has  enabled  me  to  do  for  myself." 
That  letter  would  set  a  few  tongues  wagging  in  the  Mitre. 
There  is  one  sentence  in  "  The  Idler  "  which  always  recalls 
the  passage  describing  the  sickness  of  the  heart  at  this 
hope  deferred  : — 

"  What  we  have  missed  long  enough  to  want  it,  we  value  more 
when  it  is  regained  ;  but  that  which  has  been  lost  till  it  is  forgotten 
will  be  found  at  last  with  little  gladness." 

In  indicating  what  I  consider  to  be  perfect  letters,  it 
must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  matter  is  one  of  individual 
choice.  Many  people  are  set  against  Lord  Byron's  letters 
by  those  very  qualities  of  flippancy  and  cynical  impudence 
that  have  constituted  their  main  charm  in  other  eyes. 
Some  few  sentimentalists  among  us  can  doubtless  tolerate 
the  preposterously  extravagant  worship  that  Burns  brings 
to  the  shrine  of  his  Clarinda.  Lamb's  delightful  inconse- 
quentiality  and  his  quaint  humour,  Cowper's  model  English, 
and  Richardson's  irreproachable  tea-party  manner  are  all 
in  their  own  way  inimitable.  Who  remembers,  to  make  a 
digression,  that  remark  of  Lovelace's  in  a  letter  about 
"  Clarissa"  :— 

"  Yet  there  are  people,  and  I  have  talked  with  some  of  them  who 
remember  that  she  was  born." 

But  such  letters  as  these  two  of  Lady  Mary  Montagu 
and  Dr.  Johnson  carry  conviction  everywhere ;  there  can 
be  no  questioning  their  supremacy.  I  also  recall  two  others 
that  belong  to  the  first  rank  :  Dean  Swift's  "  Letters  to  a 

122 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


Very  Young  Lady  on  Her  Marriage,"  and  Lord  Byron's 
"  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  My  Grandmother's  Review." 
The  author  of  "  A  Tale  of  a  Tub  "  was  a  master  alike  of  the 
formal  dignified  didactic  style  and  the  light  and  playful 
manner  that  finds  expression  in  that  budget  of  baby  letters 
to  Stella,  recounting  his  walks,  his  meetings  with  courtiers 
and  nobles  and  the  fashionable  follies  of  the  day.  As  a 
capital  instance  of  how  he  excelled  in  the  gossipy  vein, 
what  is  there  more  quotable  than  the  letter  to  Stella  in 
which  he  expresses  his  surprise  that  a  certain  lady  of  their 
acquaintance  has  given  over  card  playing  : — 

"  Mrs.  Manley  foresworn  euchre !  What !  and  no  blazing  star 
appeared  ?  No  monsters  born,  no  whale  thrown  up  ?  " 

The  advice  contained  in  the  letter  to  the  newly  married 
young  lady  is  as  sound  and  as  applicable  as  ever.  It  is 
conveyed  in  perfectly  chosen  language  of  simple  directness 
and  unmistakable  sincerity.  I  do  not  suppose  that  the 
hints  it  conveys  are  to  the  taste  of  the  majority  of  women, 
and  it  is  easy  to  see  by  the  tone  that  the  writer  is  convinced 
of  the  superiority  of  the  husband.  As  he  was  constantly 
urging  Stella  to  read  and  spell  correctly,  he  impresses  on 
the  wife  the  necessity  for  educating  herself  so  that  she 
may  be  a  fit  companion  for  her  husband.  Then  we  come 
to  the  following  excellent  passage  : — 

"  I  am  ignorant  of  any  one  quality  that  is  amicable  in  a  man 
which  is  not  equally  so  in  a  woman  ;  I  do  not  except  even  modesty 
and  gentleness  of  nature.  Nor  do  I  know  one  vice  or  folly  which 
is  not  equally  detestable  in  both.  There  is  indeed  one  infirmity 
which  is  generally  allowed  you,  I  mean  that  of  cowardice  ;  yet  there 
would  seem  to  be  something  very  capricious  that  when  women 

123 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


profess  their  admiration  for  a  Colonel  or  a  Captain  on  account  of 
his  valour,  they  should  fancy  it  a  very  graceful  and  becoming  quality 
in  themselves  to  be  afraid  of  their  own  shadows ;  to  scream  in  a 
barge  when  the  weather  is  calmest,  to  run  from  a  cow  at  a  hundred 
yards'  distance,  to  fall  into  fits  at  the  sight  of  a  spider,  an  earwig, 
or  a  frog." 

The  Dean  always  spoke  his  mind  to  the  other  sex. 

Lord  Byron's  "  Letter  to  the  Editor  of  My  Grandmother's 
Review  "  is  not  as  well  known  as  it  deserves  to  be.  It  is, 
in  spite  of  its  studied  insolence,  its  malignity,  and  its 
occasional  patches  of  cheap  humour,  a  remarkable  piece 
of  satirical  writing.  No  doubt  the  editor  of  the  "  British 
Review  "  laid  himself  open  to  attack  by  the  pompous  and 
wholly  ridiculous  reply  he  made  to  that  humorous  couplet 
in  "  Don  Juan  "  :— 

"  For  fear  some  prudish  readers  who  grow  skittish, 
I've  bribed  My  Grandmother's  Review — The  British." 

"  No  misdemeanour,"  wrote  this  editor,  in  the  white 
heat  of  a  virtuous  passion,  "  not  even  that  of  sending  into 
the  world  obscene  and  blasphemous  poetry,  the  product  of 
studious  lewdness  and  laboured  impiety — appears  to  us  in 
so  detestable  a  light  as  the  acceptance  of  a  present  by  an 
editor  of  a  Review  as  the  condition  of  praising  an  author." 
No  wonder  Byron  could  not  resist  the  opportunity  of 
gibbeting  the  writer.  The  letter  is  too  long  to  quote,  and 
the  sting  and  cleverness  of  the  satire  are  apt  to  evaporate 
somewhat  under  condensation.  The  following  extract 
has  always  seemed  to  me  delightfully  funny  : — 

"  In  the  first  place  his  lordship  has  no  grandmother.  Now  the 
author — and  we  may  believe  him  in  this — doth  expressly  state  that 

124 


Four  Letters  that  will  Live 


the  '  British  '  is  his  '  Grandmother's  Review  '  ;  and  if  as  I  think  I 
have  distinctly  proved  this  was  not  a  mere  figurative  allusion  to 
your  supposed  intellectual  age  and  sex,  my  dear  friend,  it  follows, 
whether  you  be  she  or  no,  that  there  is  such  an  elderly  lady  still 
extant.  And  I  can  the  more  readily  credit  this,  having  a  sexagenary 
aunt  of  my  own,  who  perused  you  constantly  till  unfortunately 
falling  asleep  over  the  leading  article  of  your  last  number,  her 
spectacles  fell  off,  and  were  broken  against  the  fender  after  a  faithful 
service  of  fifteen  years,  and  she  has  never  been  able  to  fit  her  eyes 
since  ;  so  that  I  have  been  forced  to  read  you  aloud  to  her ;  and 
this  is,  in  fact,  the  way  in  which  I  became  acquainted  with  the 
subject  of  my  present  letter,  and  thus  determined  to  become  your 
public  correspondent." 


125 


XIII 
NO    ROOM    FOR    POETRY 


A  man  may  play  the  fool  in  everything  else,  but  not  in  poetry." 

Montaigne. 


XIII 

No  Boom  for  Poetry 


IT  will  not  be  disputed,  I  suppose,  that  the  majority 
of  mankind  are  born  into  the  world  absolutely 
destitute  of  any  real  sense  or  feeling  for  the  highest 
poetry.  But  if  any  one  doubts  the  literal  truth  of  this 
statement,  let  him  the  first  time  he  is  in  intimate  company, 
where  such  a  liberty  would  not  be  resented,  quote,  say,  one 
of  those  exquisitely  idyllic  passages  from  "  Aucassin  and 
Nicolette,"  or  a  sonnet  of  Sidney's,  and  watch  the  effect. 
Be  it  understood,  of  course,  that  the  authorship  is  not  dis- 
closed. In  these  two  cases,  his  friends  would  probably  be 
none  the  wiser,  but  at  the  mention  of  Shakespeare,  or 
Milton,  or  Shelley,  or  Keats  there  would  be  an  instant 
murmur  of  approval,  so  universal  is  the  sham  reverence 
nowadays  paid  to  established  names.  Education,  as  the 
word  is  commonly  understood,  has  very  little  to  do  with 
the  question,  and  an  unlettered  old  woman  will  often  know 
more  of  poetry  than  all  the  professors.  For  no  amount 
of  learning  will  make  a  man  sensible  to  the  appeal  of  high 
poetry  any  more  than  it  will  make  him  a  poet.  But  he 
must  be  something  of  a  poet  by  inheritance  to  appreciate 
and  understand  the  full  majesty  of  Claudio's  speech  on 
Death  in  "  Measure  for  Measure,"  or  the  rare  charm  of 

K  129 


No  Room  for  Poetry 


Perdita's  address  to  the  flowers  in  "The  Winter's  Tale." 
Keats  is  a  rare  instance  of  a  naturally  gifted  mind  which, 
free  from  all  pedantry  and  unburdened  by  scholarship,  was 
able  to  bring  itself  into  imaginative  kinship  with  Shake- 
speare, to  discover  hidden  poetry  everywhere  in  his  works. 
No  finer  tribute  has  ever  been  paid  to  Shakespeare  than 
is  contained  in  a  remark  in  one  of  Keats's  letters : — 

"  I  begin  to  think  that  Shakespeare  is  about  enough  for  us." 

Few  men  are  born  with  the  imaginative  insight  and  the 
magic  spark  of  sympathy  which  makes  Keats  a  fine  com- 
mentator, as  well  as  a  great  poet.  But  those  who  care 
to  follow  him  in  his  studies  of  Shakespeare  may  soon  find 
out  for  themselves  how  far  they  have  been  endowed  by 
Nature  with  the  gift  of  understanding  poetry. 

To  the  minds  of  many  people  who  come  within  the 
general  category,  the  finest  and  most  exalted  passages  in 
the  poetry  of  the  world  represent  nothing  more  than  a 
medley  of  words  in  which  they  are  often  quick  to  perceive 
a  plentiful  lack  of  practical  ideas.  A  fine  phrase  or  a 
beautiful  simile  makes  no  appeal  to  them,  unless  for  the 
purposes  of  dissection.  In  this  respect  they  are  not  unlike 
Charles  Lamb's  Scotchman,  who,  hearing  some  one  remark 
of  John  Buncle  that  it  was  a  "  healthy  "  book,  replied  : 
"  Did  I  catch  rightly  what  you  said  ?  I  have  heard  of  a 
man  in  health,  and  of  a  healthy  state  of  body,  but  I  do 
not  see  how  that  epithet  can  be  properly  applied  to  a  book." 
The  other  day,  a  reader  of  this  class  discovered  a  flaw  in 
Keats's  almost  matchless  "  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn."  Will 

130 


No  Room  for  Poetry 


it  be  believed  that  he  objected  to  the  following  well-known 
lines  on  the  ground  that  heifers  do  not  low  : — 

"  Who  are  these  coming  to  the  sacrifice  ? 
To  what  green  altar,  O  mysterious  priest, 
Lead'st  thou  that  heifer  lowing  at  the  skies." 

Keats  is  in  good  company.  Shakespeare  did  not  escape 
criticism  of  the  same  kind  in  the  eighteenth  century  when 
Pope  and  his  contemporaries  were  engaged  in  settling  the 
question  of  his  immortality.  Dr.  Johnson,  in  spite  of  all 
his  excellences,  and  the  fact  that  he  has  never  been  sur- 
passed in  prose  imagery,  was  not  always  a  safe  guide  in 
Shakespearean  criticism.  Did  he  not  object  strongly  to 
Macbeth's  use  of  the  words  "  knife  "  and  "  blanket  "  in 
the  magnificent  soliloquy  : — 

"  Come,  thick  night ! 

And  pall  thee  in  the  dunnest  smoke  of  hell 
That  my  keen  knife  see  not  the  wound  it  makes, 
Nor  heav'n  peep  through  the  blanket  of  the  dark, 
To  cry,  Hold  !   Hold  !  " 

In  the  paper  from  which  this  criticism  of  "  Macbeth  " 
is  taken,  Dr.  Johnson,  dealing  with  the  difficulties  of  poetic 
diction,  points  out  that  no  word  is  naturally  or  intrinsically 
meaner  than  another ;  and  that  our  opinion  of  words,  as 
of  other  things  arbitrarily  and  capriciously  established, 
depends  wholly  upon  accident  and  custom.  This  calls  to 
one's  mind  at  once  the  case  of  Wordsworth.  More  than 
any  other  modern  poet,  he  found  himself  ridiculed,  and 
often  rightly  so,  because  he  endeavoured  to  deal  with  high 
themes  in  the  simplest  and  barest  phraseology,  forgetting 
that  one  of  the  first  essentials  of  poetry  is  that  it  should 


No  Room  for  Poetry 


touch  the  imagination  in  a  way  that  is  impossible  with 
common  things.  No  one,  for  instance,  could  ever  be  im- 
pressed with  the  lines  from  the  "  Blind  Highland  Boy  "  :— 

"  A  household  tub,  like  one  of  those 
Which  women  use  to  wash  their  clothes, 
This  carried  the  Blind  Boy." 

The  blind  boy  in  the  wash  tub  is  an  unpardonable  slip 
into  bathos  that  has  rarely  been  equalled,  and  perhaps 
never  surpassed,  by  a  great  poet.  But  if  any  one  wishes 
to  see  how  the  description  of  a  noble  and  impressive  scene 
may  be  vulgarised,  and  made  contemptible  in  poetry,  he 
can,  after  studying  Genesis,  take  the  advice  of  Coleridge, 
and  read  Drayton's  account  of  the  Flood.  Drayton  wrote 
how — 

"  The  King  of  Beasts  his  fury  doth  suppress, 
And  to  the  ark  leads  down  the  lioness. 
The  bull  for  his  beloved  mate  doth  low, 
And  to  the  ark  brings  in  the  fair-eyed  cow." 

The  same  scene  is  described  with  great  economy  of  words 
by  Milton  in  "  Paradise  Lost,"  but  there  is  no  detailed 
catalogue  of  the  animals  in  language  which  involuntarily 
calls  up  merriment,  and  in  that  way  reduces  what  is  in- 
tended to  be  an  impressive  piece  of  writing  to  the  level  of 
caricature.  But  the  unfortunate  use  of  words  and  similes, 
which,  when  they  are  placed  in  a  certain  connection,  destroy 
at  once  all  sense  of  grandeur,  and  dignity,  has  been  a  fruit- 
ful subject  for  the  humorists  from  the  earliest  times.  A 
less  common  fault,  and  one  which  can  only  be  detected 
by  those  who  understand  and  appreciate  the  best  poetry, 
is  often  the  outcome  of  a  lack  of  humour  on  the  part  of  the 

132 


No  Room  for  Poetry 


poet,  or  a  failure  to  translate  his  thoughts  into  the  terms 
of  poetry.  Joseph  Cottle  (of  Byron's  quite  irrelevant  "  Oh, 
Phoebus,  what  a  name  !  "),  going  up  Malvern  Hills,  sings  : — 

"  How  steep  !    How  painful  the  ascent  1 
It  needs  the  evidence  of  close  deduction 
To  know  that  I  shall  ever  gain  the  top." 

Lamb  mentions  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Manning  that 
Cottle  read  two  or  three  acts  of  his  tragedy  over  to  him. 
In  one  scene  it  is  set  out  that  the  enemy  has  engaged  twelve 
archers  to  come  over  in  a  boat  from  an  enemy's  country 
and  waylay  him  ;  and  he  thereupon  pathetically  exclaims  : 
"  Twelve  dost  thou  say  ?  Curse  on  those  dozen  villains." 
Lamb  collapsed  at  this  heroic  touch  ;  in  his  own  words  he 
"  had  no  more  muscles  that  day."  Mr.  Robert  Mont- 
gomery, as  readers  of  Macaulay  will  remember,  sings  of  a 
slain  warrior  who,  while  "  lying  on  his  bleeding  breast," 
manages  to  "  stare  ghastly  and  grimly  on  the  skies,"  and 
a  murderer  "  with  ashy  lips  in  cold  convulsion  spread." 

Yet  some  of  the  most  popular  poetry  of  to-day — indeed 
the  only  poetry  that  sells  to  any  appreciable  extent — is 
plentifully  strewn  with  similar  absurdities  of  speech,  and 
often  vulgarised  to  the  level  of  the  music-hall.  Wordsworth 
declared  to  Lady  Beaumont  that  "  there  neither  is,  nor 
can  be,  any  genuine  enjoyment  of  poetry  among  nineteen 
out  of  twenty  of  those  persons  who  live,  or  wish  to  live, 
in  the  broad  light  of  the  world — among  those  who  either 
are,  or  are  striving  to  make  themselves,  people  of  con- 
sideration in  society."  The  pressure  of  modern  life  is  so 
great,  and  the  bare  struggle  for  existence  so  exacting,  that 
the  average  man  finds  very  little  room  for  poetry  in  his 

133 


Room  for  Poetry 


world.  Even  the  man  who  is  born  with  both  imagination 
and  the  lyrical  sense  finds  the  conditions  of  life  oppressive 
and  inimical  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  highest  poetry.  Those 
conditions  are,  it  is  to  be  feared,  telling  on  the  production 
of  the  race  of  poets  also. 

The  question  will  be  asked  at  once  by  those  who  find 
enjoyment  in  the  militant  rhymes  of  the  jingo  poets : 
"  What  then  constitutes  great  poetry  ?  "  Opinions  differ 
even  among  those  who  are  supposed  to  be  the  best  judges 
of  the  matter,  and  I  remember  that  a  scholar  and  a  critic 
recently  declined  to  accept  the  following  lines  from  William 
Blake  as  coming  strictly  under  this  head  : — 

"When  the  stars  threw  down  their  spears, 
And  watered  Heaven  with  their  tears, 
Did  He  smile  His  work  to  see  ? 
Did  He  who  made  the  lamb  make  thee  ?  " 

These  lines  are,  of  course,  of  the  very  essence  of  poetry  ; 
but  to  make  them  intelligible  they  must  be  read  in  con- 
nection with  the  rest  of  that  noble  poem  in  which  Blake 
addresses  the  tiger  of  the  forest.  Not  that  any  one  need 
always  demand  that  poetry  should  have  a  clear  and  unmis- 
takable meaning,  or  bear  translation  into  the  commonplace 
thoughts  of  everyday  life.  It  is  sufficient  that  it  is  rare 
and  beautiful,  for  all  things  rare  and  beautiful  are  good. 
The  Philistine  will  differ  from  me,  I  know,  and  to  him  I 
would  only  quote  that  incomparable  couplet  from  "  The 
Ode  to  a  Nightingale,"  and  ask  whether,  although  defying 
analysis,  it  does  not  belong  to  the  highest  regions  of  poetry  : 

"  Magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn." 

134 


XIV 
THE   MUSE   ON    THE   MARKET 


"  Mr.  William  Watson's  first  book,  '  The  Prince's  Quest,1  pub- 
lished in  1880,  waited  just  ten  years  before  a  hundred  copies  had 
been  sold,  and  these  were  mostly  bought  by  the  author  and  his 
friends  !  " 

"  The  Westminster  Gazette." 


XIV 

The  Muse  on  the  Market 


OF  course  everybody  gaily  admits  nowadays  that 
there  is  no  market  for  poetry — poets,  editors, 
reviewers,  and  most  of  all,  publishers.  Pub- 
lishers, on  the  whole  not  a  very  enterprising  class,  have, 
since  the  war  brought  about  a  revival,  started  to  retail  the 
Muse  on  the  penny  plain  and  twopence  coloured  principle. 
No  longer  do  we  get  the  poet  in  the  plain  octavo  of  the  Mid 
and  Late  Victorians,  with  the  familiar  frontispiece — a 
wood-cut  of  Arcadia — Pan  and  the  purling  rivulet,  the 
sheep  and  the  goats,  and  the  myrtle  bowers — a.  tout  en- 
semble, which  in  those  far-off  days  seemed  to  be  the  right 
and  proper  hallmark  of  a  book  of  poetry.  How  that  gor- 
geous allegory  determined  for  us  eternally  the  mystic 
character  of  the  poet's  calling  !  We  were  permitted,  so 
to  speak,  a  peep  through  the  pearly  gates.  But  this  is 
all  changed  now.  Poetry  of  all  ages,  from  the  odes  of 
Horace  to  the  ballads  of  Sir  John  Suckling,  or  the  tremulous 
love-story  of  Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  comes  to  us  in  a  new 
and  rich  investiture.  Farewell  to  the  sweet  simplicity  of 
the  pastoral  scene,  or  the  dream  pictures  of  the  dim  woods 
wherein  the  melancholy  figure  of  the  poet  wanders  alone 
communing  with  the  gods.  The  modern  Muse  is  turned 

137 


The  Muse  on  the  Market 


out  like  a  gay  debutante,  becurled  and  scented,  all  ribbons 
and  furbelows.  Books  of  verse  have  their  leaves  tipped 
with  gold  ;  artists  decorate  the  opening  and  the  closing 
pages,  and,  so  sumptuously  arrayed,  they  await  in  the 
booksellers'  shops  the  coming  of  the  sentimental  young 
man  and  maiden. 

The  cloth  or  the  plain  edition  is  really  not  plain  at  all, 
for  it  has  its  bookmarker  of  silk,  and  many  other  signs  of 
an  extravagant  bringing-up.  It  matters  not  to  any  one 
except,  perhaps,  an  occasional  reviewer,  what  lies  between 
those  dainty  covers.  And  the  reviewer — who  shall  blame 
him  ? — is  ready  with  his  meed  of  praise  for  those  who  have 
decked  the  slopes  of  Parnassus  with  flowers  and  lighted  up 
its  peaks  with  the  rich  glow  of  the  sunset. 

How  often  are  we  told  that  people  will  not  take  poetry 
for  better  or  for  worse  on  its  merits  as  poetry  alone  ?  It 
is  an  age  of  hustle,  and  (says  the  critic)  the  world  has  no 
need  of  the  romantic  poet  and  the  dreamer,  who  starved  in 
garrets  or  lived  on  the  crumbs  from  his  patron's  table. 
Of  course  he  is  careful  to  say  that  the  age  is  no  better  for 
this.  He  is  like  the  age  itself  in  this  ;  that  he  keeps  up 
the  pretty  convention  that  poetry  is  a  lovely  thing,  and  of 
good  report,  and  ought  really  to  adapt  itself  to  modern 
needs,  or  if  not,  then  the  publisher  ought  to  do  what  the 
gramophone  people  have  done  in  music — give  the  world 
its  poetry  in  tabloid  packets  with  silver  paper,  shout  it 
through  megaphones  or  throw  it  on  the  bioscope.  They 
are,  as  a  solid  matter  of  fact,  making  cinema  films  out  of 
it  in  America. 

Yet  the  age  is  not  peculiar  in  its  Philistinism.     Poetry 

138 


The  Muse  on  the  Market 


was  never  a  saleable  commodity.  Granted  that  a  hundred 
years  ago  the  Muse  had  a  better  show  than  she  has  to-day, 
one  finds  that  even  then  there  was  the  same  coldness  to- 
wards her  on  the  part  of  the  so-called  "  practical  "  man. 

I  have  just  unearthed  in  a  bookseller's  shop  in  the  Euston 
Road  one  of  the  very  earliest  anthologies,  dated  1807,  fifty 
years  before  Palgrave's  "  Golden  Treasury  "  took  pride  of 
place  in  this  department  of  letters.  It  is  the  kind  of  colla- 
tion that  would  have  delighted  the  heart  of  Polonius. 
Here  I  find  verse,  sacred,  and  moral,  didactic,  descriptive, 
narrative,  pathetic,  dramatic,  epic,  and  miscellaneous. 
But  the  most  interesting  and  curious  feature  of  it  all  is 
the  preface,  which  consists  of  an  eloquent  and  flowery 
defence  of  the  art  of  poetry,  and  a  vigorous  indictment  of 
those  utilitarian  spirits  who  would  away  with  it.  It  would 
almost  seem  to  these  critics  that  a  love  of  poetry  in  the 
young  was  regarded  as  a  vice  demanding  the  most  rigorous 
suppression.  And  this  was  in  an  age  when  the  popular 
poet  was  Cowper,  who  had  turned  from  such  innocent 
pleasures  as  gardening  and  taming  hares  to  the  production 
of  the  Olney  Hymns  ! 

"  Why,  there  are  some,"  says  the  author  of  our  apologia, 
"  who  have  thought  that  a  taste  for  poetry  interfered  with 
an  attention  to  what  they  called  '  the  main  chance.' ': 
"  Scribbling  verses  and  making  love,"  as  Burns  had  observed 
a  little  earlier  ;  and  the  prejudice  has  descended  to  our 
own  day,  when  the  sad  lot  of  the  minor  poet  certainly  does 
something  to  justify  the  assertion.  It  is  seldom,  to  para- 
phrase a  great  writer,  that  any  one  discovers  mines  of  gold 
and  silver  in  Parnassus. 

139 


The  Muse  on  the  Market 


The  odds  against  the  poet  are  still  as  great  as  ever  they 
were,  but  we  who  are  the  poet's  good  friends  differ  from 
the  compiler  of  this  anthology  on  one  point.  We  do  not 
find  it  necessary  to  go  out  and  fight  for  the  very  existence 
of  poetry.  The  attitude  of  the  man  who  never  reads  it  is 
still  one  of  silent  admiration,  and  he  permits  Mr.  Frederic 
Harrison  to  tell  him  that  he  should  go  down  on  his  knees 
and  pray  for  that  Divine  Spirit  which  will  enable  him  to 
appreciate  the  "  Ode  to  a  Grecian  Urn."  How  different 
was  the  public  to  whom  the  compiler  of  my  "  Poetical 
Epitome  " — as  he  calls  it — had  to  appeal !  Poetry — away 
with  it !  It  is  not  saleable  like  bonds.  You  cannot  ex- 
change it  for  a  landed  estate,  or  even  a  brand-new  periwig. 
That  it  should  exist  merely  as  any  other  beautiful  thing 
exists  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to  these  early  Philis- 
tines. Therefore  says  our  valiant  defender  : — • 

"  To  obviate  their  objections  it  is  necessary  to  remind  them  that 
poetry  has  ever  claimed  the  power  of  conveying  instruction  in  the 
most  effective  manner  by  the  vehicle  of  pleasure." 

I  have  been  trying  to  conjure  up  a  vision  of  the  author  of 
this  most  ingenious  preface.  Perhaps  he  was  a  minor  poet 
himself,  and  the  iron  had  entered  his  soul.  There  he  sits 
— an  old  man  I  should  imagine — probably  a  schoolmaster, 
who,  in  his  youth,  had  the  great  Dr.  Johnson  pointed  out 
to  him.  I  have  no  doubt  at  all  that  he  read  "  The  Ram- 
bler "  when  it  came  out  in  weekly  numbers.  Certainly, 
he  has  imbibed  the  dignity  and  pomp  of  the  Johnsonian 
manner,  though  he  has  nothing  of  the  doctor's  good 
humour.  I  don't  know  whether  he  recalled  the  remark  of 

140 


The  Muse  on  the  Market 


Johnson  to  Boswell  that  poetry,  being  merely  a  luxury,  it 
must  be  exquisite  of  its  kind  or  we  did  not  want  it  at  all. 
He  is  bent  on  marketing  this  book  of  his  by  dealing  with 
the  Philistine  on  his  own  ground.  "  It  will,"  he  says,  in 
effect,  "  be  a  good  thing  for  the  man  who  has  his  eye  on 
*  the  main  chance ' !  "  No  family  should  be  without  a 
copy.  A  fine  ode  is  not  to  him  a  fine  ode  and  nothing 
more.  It  may  lead  to  the  Primacy  or  to  the  Woolsack. 
Hearken  to  this  : — 

"  The  greatest  men  in  every  liberal  and  honourable  profession 
gave  their  early  years  to  the  charms  of  poetry.  Many  of  the  most 
illustrious  worthies  in  the  Church  and  in  the  State  were  allured  to 
the  land  of  learning  by  the  song  of  the  Muse ;  and  they  would  per- 
haps never  have  entered  it  if  their  preceptors  had  forbidden  them  to 
lend  an  ear.  Of  so  much  consequence  is  the  study  of  poetry  in 
youth  to  the  general  advancement  of  learning." 

One  would  give  something  to  know  the  fate  of  this 
volume.  Did  it,  in  spite  of  all  this  trumpeting,  languish 
on  the  shelves  of  the  bookseller,  or  did  it  run  into  many 
editions  ?  As  a  book  it  is  nothing  to  look  at.  It  is  solid 
and  substantial,  like  the  old  oak  furniture  on  which  it 
doubtless  reposed  for  long  years  unread.  But  it  is  for  all 
tastes  and  for  all  time  ;  and  side  by  side  with  all  the  obscure 
worthies  who  have  a  place  in  Johnson's  "  Lives,"  I  en- 
counter Gay  and  Herrick,  "  Mr."  Pope  (as  he  is  most 
respectfully  called),  and — blessings  on  the  memory  of  the 
old  man — a  selection  of  those  delightful  old  English  ballads 
which  are  a  part  of  our  national  heritage.  Great  spirits 
have  sojourned  in  the  land  since  1807,  such  as,  in  the  words 
of  the  wise  son  of  Sirach,  "  found  out  musical  tunes  and 

141 


The  Muse  on  the  Market 


recited  verses  in  writing."  To  the  list  quoted  by  our 
stately  old  editor — Shakespeare,  Milton,  Pope,  and  Gray 
— we  can  at  least  add  five  other  immortals.  But  is  the 
Muse  any  more  marketable  for  all  that  ?  Is  she  not  still 
a  beggar  at  the  gate,  though  her  raiment  be  of  purple  and 
of  fine  linen  ? 


142 


XV 
A  PLEA  FOR  THE  MINOR  POET 


"  The  works  of  the  minor  poets  contain  passages  or  single  lines 
that  can  only  be  attributed  to  the  highest  imagination,  to  a  sudden 
and  rare  endowment  that  sends  us  to  the  work  of  the  greatest  poets 
for  comparison." 

"  Centenary  Biography  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes." 


"  Those  attenuated  volumes  of  poetry  in  fancy  bindings  open 
their  covers  at  one  like  so  many  little  unfledged  birds,  and  one  does 
so  long  to  drop  a  worm  in — a  worm  in  the  shape  of  a  kind  soft  word 
for  the  poor  fledgling." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 


XV 

A  Plea  for  the  Minor  Poet 


"  "W"N  the  spring  a  young  man's  fancy  lightly  turns 
I  to  thoughts  of  love."  How  Tennyson's  well- 
•A.  known  couplet  trips  glibly  off  the  tongue  of  the 
laughing  Philistine ;  writers  for  the  comic  papers  grind 
out  their  old  puerilities,  and  even  serious  and  dignified 
journals  harbour  sly  allusions  to  the  passion-stricken  minor 
poet.  For  there  is  a  widely  prevalent  notion  that  each 
spring  the  editor's  post-bag  is  loaded  down  with  a  stock 
of  impossible  odes  to  skylarks.  The  minor  poet  who  is 
content  to  wait  humbly  on  the  slopes  of  Parnassus,  hoping 
all  things,  and  enduring  all  things,  must  now  and  again 
feel  his  gorge  rise  as  the  gratuitous  sneer  passes  round.  I 
really  think  that  some  one  should  undertake  a  defence  of 
the  minor  poet.  The  mere  fact  that  the  adjective  is 
applied  at  all,  not,  let  it  be  remembered,  as  a  means  of 
differentiation,  but  in  a  spirit  of  open  ridicule,  is  in  itself 
an  indignity  that  ought  to  be  very  properly  resented.  Who 
for  example  ever  heard  of  any  one  speak  of  a  minor  musician 
or  a  minor  painter  ?  Yet  whilst  music  and  painting  merely 
produce  a  thing  in  itself,  poetry,  if  it  is  good  minor  poetry, 
suggests  what  exists  outside  the  essence  of  the  thing  and 
is  capable  of  much  finer  gradations  of  passion  and  fancy. 
L  145 


A  Plea  for  the  Minor  Poet 


The  grown  man  who  writes  verse  is  regarded  either  with 
good-natured  contempt  or  with  indifference.  The  average 
reader  is  frankly  ignorant  on  the  subject  of  poetry,  though 
if  he  must  occasionally  submit  to  it,  he  prefers  a  riot  of 
sentiment  or  a  boisterous  jingling  measure.  And  by  a 
strange  irony,  though  he  is  ignorant  of  the  fact,  the  very 
poets  to  whom  he  lends  a  condescending  ear  are  unquestion- 
ably minor  poets — and  very  minor  indeed  at  that. 

We  all  know  the  man  who  when  the  subject  of  poetry  is 
discussed  exclaims  at  once  :  "  Thank  goodness  !  I  never 
wrote  a  line  of  poetry  in  my  life  "  ;  and  the  disclaimer  is 
made  with  that  evident  sense  of  relief  and  thankfulness 
that  might  attach  to  a  confession  that  he  had  never  suffered 
from  an  infectious  disease.  No  sooner  does  a  youth  leave 
off  scribbling  Latin  verses  than  the  world  enters  into  a 
conspiracy  to  prevent  him  ever  again  lapsing  into  the  habit 
of  verse,  be  it  concerning  love  or  any  other  passion  that 
surges  through  the  human  soul.  The  attitude  is  that  of 
the  elder  Weller  : — 

"  Poetry  is  unnatural.  Never  you  let  yourself  down  to  talk 
poetry,  my  boy  !  " 

Ridicule,  though  it  may  not  kill  poets  (Shelley's  "  Ado- 
nais  "  notwithstanding),  has,  I  doubt  not,  brought  sharply 
to  a  standstill  more  than  one  promising  youth  whose  beam- 
ing face  was  turned  joyously  toward  the  heights.  And 
there  is  always  the  consideration  to  face  that  it  is  about 
one  chance  in  ten  thousand  that  at  the  best  he  will  ever 
turn  out  to  be  anything  but  a  very  minor  poet. 

A  friend  of  my  own  confesses  that  years  ago  he  laboured 

146 


A  Plea  for  the  Minor  Poet 


with  exaltation  and  joyousness  at  a  spring  lyric,  and  glow- 
ing with  pride  he  carried  it  to  the  sanctum  of  a  worldly 
minded  editor.  "  Yes,"  said  the  editor  solemnly  when  he 
had  glanced  it  through,  "  leave  it  with  me  !  "  Two  days 
later  the  pair  accidentally  met.  "  You  may  trust  me 
implicitly,"  whispered  the  man  in  authority,  "  I  burnt  it, 
and  not  a  soul  shall  ever  know  of  its  existence."  I  suspect 
that  my  friend,  now  long  since  passed  the  heyday  of  youth, 
joins  in  the  triumph  of  the  Philistines.  I  know  he  regards 
that  passionate  spring-time  lyric  as  among  the  indiscretions 
of  an  impetuous  and  hot-headed  youth. 

But  editors  are  unsympathetic  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  trials  they  undoubtedly  have  to  endure  from  the  wholly 
illiterate,  and  that  small  but  extremely  pertinacious  class 
of  leisurely  scribblers — clergymen  and  others — who  write 
verse  without  the  least  idea  of  the  rules  of  the  game.  The 
other  day  a  young  and  enthusiastic  poet  sent  a  sonnet  to 
a  newspaper  of  high  standing,  and  to  his  delight  it  was 
published.  The  editor,  whose  literary  labours  are  confined 
to  the  leading  articles,  and  who  knows  nothing  of  poetry, 
had  no  hand  in  the  publication  of  the  poem.  Great  was 
his  astonishment  a  few  days  later  when  he  was  effusively 
greeted  by  the  young  poet :  "  I  am  delighted  that  you 
liked  my  sonnet.  I  must  thank  you  for  the  splendid 
position  you  gave  it."  "  Sonnet !  Sonnet !  "  exclaimed 
the  bewildered  journalist,  "  what  the  devil  is  a  sonnet  ?  " 

It  may  be  that  the  mild  spirit  of  contempt  which  the 
average  journalist  feels  for  the  writer  with  a  proclivity  for 
verse  is  largely  induced  by  the  victim  himself.  Not  very 
long  ago  a  poet  of  established  reputation  among  the  minors 

H7 


A  Plea  for  the  Minor  Poet 


sent  off  a  telegram  to  the  editor  of  a  provincial  daily  paper 
containing  the  warning :  "  Sonnet  on  5.20  train."  The 
precious  burden  (subject  to  the  ordinary  freight  charges) 
arrived  safe  and  sound. 

Then  the  minor  poet  is  the  Cinderella  of  the  magazines. 
The  editors  calculate  the  value  of  his  work  with  a  foot 
rule,  making  sure  that  the  poem  does  not  overrun  the  spare 
half-page  which  he  cannot  otherwise  fill.  No  matter  how 
mighty  the  line,  so  far  and  no  further !  Was  it  not  the 
printers'  foreman  who  once  brought  the  blush  of  pride  to 
the  cheek  of  Kipling,  then  himself  a  minor  poet,  by  the 
remark,  "  I  liked  that  little  poem  of  yours  immensely,  Mr. 
Kipling.  It  just  fit  the  column."  One  of  those  familiar 
rejection  forms,  cold-blooded  printed  things,  drawn  up 
with  almost  Oriental  politeness,  contains  the  warning  that 
"  No  poem  should  exceed  thirty  lines."  And  this  document 
emanates  from  a  house  that  has  a  reputation  for  the  highest 
standard  of  literary  taste. 

The  derisive  cry  which  was  hurled  at  Keats — "  Back  to 
your  gallipots  " — has  always  followed  the  young  poet  into 
the  solitude  of  his  dreams,  vexing  his  tender  soul  and 
making  him  a  furtive  beggar  at  the  Gate  of  Letters.  It  is 
no  new  thing,  this  contempt  for  the  unhappy  man  who  is 
moved  to  rhyme.  The  Elizabethans  were  as  contemptuous 
as  the  educated  reader  of  the  twentieth  century.  Ben 
Jonson  in  "  Bartholomew  Fair  "  says  : — 

"  I  began  shrewdly  to  suspect  the  young  men  of  a  terrible  taint — 
Poetry." 

That  word  "  taint  "  defines  exactly  the  orthodox  view  of 

148 


A  Plea  for  the  Minor  Poet 


the  divine  gift.  Almost  all  speakers,  and  a  large  majority 
of  writers,  think  it  necessary  to  apologise  for  quoting  poetry 
in  any  serious  company — and  that  not  necessarily  the 
poetry  of  the  minor.  The  grown  man  who  is  known  to 
write  it  is  as  much  the  subject  of  compassionate  interest 
as  a  person  with  an  ill-balanced  mind  or  a  strange  and 
elusive  disease.  Yet  the  world  is  undoubtedly  full  of 
poets.  The  war  has  revealed  that.  Locked  up  securely 
in  countless  desks,  hidden  away  from  the  irreverent  eyes 
of  dearest  and  nearest,  are  budgets  of  odes  and  sonnets 
that  will  never  see  the  light.  It  is  only  here  and  there 
that  a  man  is  seized  with  the  irresistible  impulse  to  give 
to  the  world  the  good  thing  that  has  come  into  his  heart. 
He  is  the  minor  poet ;  and  down  from  the  snow-topped 
heights  he  tumbles  into  the  unfeeling  clutches  of  the 
Philistines. 

Scott,  in  spite  of  his  own  many  weak  performances,  had,  I 
fancy,  a  mild  contempt  for  the  minor  poet.  There  is  an 
unfeeling  passage  in  "  Rob  Roy  "  which  supports  the  view 
that  it  were  better  for  the  minor  poet  that  he  had  never 
been  born : — 

"  '  To  the  memory  of  Edward,  the  Black  Prince,'  reads  Frank's 
father  in  astonishment.  '  What's  all  this  ?— Verses  !  By  heaven, 
Frank,  you  are  a  greater  blockhead  than  I  supposed  you  !  '  '  Then,' 
says  the  writer,  '  my  father  read  the  lines,  sometimes  with  an 
affectation  of  not  being  able  to  understand  the  sense — sometimes 
in  a  mouthing  tone  of  mock  heroic — always  with  an  emphasis  of  the 
most  bitter  irony,  most  irritating  to  the  nerves  of  an  author.'  " 

What  minor  poet  who  does  not  number  among  his  house- 
hold such  a  one — if  not  father,  then,  most  likely,  wife  !  . 

149 


A  Plea  for  the  Minor  Poet 


I  shall  always  feel  grateful  to  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  for 
what  he  wrote  about  the  minor  poet.  "  What  is  for- 
gotten," he  said,  "  is  this  :  that  every  poet,  even  of  the 
humblest  grade,  is  an  artist." 

He  does  not  ask  for  any  more  consideration  than  is  be- 
stowed upon  the  minor  in  other  arts  ;  he  asks,  indeed,  only 
to  be  left  alone.  But,  as  matters  stand  at  present,  the 
world  would  almost  deprive  him  of  the  benefit  of  clergy. 


150 


XVI 
THE   POETRY    OF   NEW   LANDS 


They  are  rhymes  rudely  strung  with  intent  less 

Of  sound  than  of  words, 
In  lands  where  bright  blossoms  are  scentless, 

And  songless  bright  birds ; 
Where  with  fire  a  fierce  drought  on  her  tresses, 

Insatiable  summer  oppresses 
The  woodlands  and  sad  wildernesses 

And  faint  flocks  and  herds. 

Adam  Lindsay  Gordon. 


XVI 

The  Poetry  of  New  Lands 


EVERY  new  land  inevitably,  in  the  course  of 
time,  seeks  to  express  itself  and  its  emotions  in 
the  terms  of  poetry.  But  how  often  do  we  find 
in  what  might  be  called  the  poetry  of  adolescence  those 
inherent  and  distinctive  qualities  that  are  demanded  of 
any  enduring  form  of  art  ?  Many  generations  must  pass 
before  the  people  of  a  new  country  can  rid  themselves 
entirely  of  the  traditions  and  sentiments  of  the  homeland, 
and  by  absorbing  the  conditions  around  them  create  an 
original  atmosphere  and  literature  of  their  own.  Certainly 
beautiful  and  touching  verse  is  born  of  nostalgia.  One 
recalls,  for  example,  that  exquisite  Canadian  boat  song 
with  its  pathetic  longing  for  "  the  lone  shieling  on  a  misty 
island,"  or,  again,  Macaulay's  Jacobite's  epitaph  in  which 
the  exile — 

"  Heard  on  Lavernia  Scargill's  whispering  trees, 
And  pined  by  Arno  for  my  lovelier  Tees." 

The  desire  for  the  land  of  our  birth  and  upbringing  is,  of 
course,  one  of  the  oldest  and  commonest  themes  of  English 
verse,  and  in  judging  of  the  poetry  of  a  new  country  one 

153 


The  Poetry  of  New  Lands 


must  have  a  greater  regard  for  those  writings  in  which  an 
attempt  is  made  to  embody  the  characteristics  and  emo- 
tional experiences  of  the  exile.  One  turns  naturally  to  our 
own  Colonies  in  the  search  for  a  modern  note  in  poetry,  or 
some  indication  of  an  adolescent  force  which  may  develop 
into  a  recognised  power  as  the  opportunities  for  leisure 
and  culture  continue  to  grow.  South  Africa  and  Canada 
are  beginning  to  make  themselves  heard,  though  as  yet 
they  cannot  be  said  to  have  achieved  anything  remarkable. 
In  Australia,  however,  the  case  is  different.  It  is  little 
more  than  a  century  ago  since  the  first  of  the  British 
Colonists  settled  there,  and  yet  verse  of  all  kinds  has  a 
remarkable  vogue.  How  comes  it,  I  wonder,  that  whilst 
in  this  country  the  writing  of  verse  is  regarded  as  some- 
thing of  a  feminine  occupation,  the  readers  of  Australian 
newspapers  not  only  demand  a  fair  quantity  day  by  day, 
and  week  by  week,  but  have  literary  ambitions  in  this 
direction  themselves  ?  Where  in  this  country  can  one 
point  to  a  similar  effort  in  the  cultivation  of  literary  taste 
among  the  readers  of  the  newspapers  ?  It  is  true  that 
Australia  has  not  yet  produced  a  great  poet.  The  suc- 
cessors of  Henry  Kendall  and  Adam  Lindsay  Gordon  are 
yet  to  be  born.  But  the  writings  of  Henry  Lawson  and 
A.  B.  Paterson  may  be  said  to  mark  a  distinct  development 
in  the  history  of  a  genuine  and  unmistakable  literary  note. 
What  must  inevitably  strike  an  observer  as  characteristic 
of  the  new  and  younger  and  more  vigorous  races  is  the 
perfectly  natural  effort  to  break  away  from  the  well- 
trodden  paths  of  English  poetry  and  to  discover  fresh 
inspiration  in  the  bursting  life  around  them.  They  will 

154 


The  Poetry  of  New  Lands 


have  nothing  at  all  to  do,  for  instance,  with  the  insincere 
conceits  and  pompous  elegancies  of  the  Mid-Victorian. 
Odes  to  daisies  and  all  the  slushy  sentimental  fancies  of  the 
second-rate  Nature  "  poet "  are  never  even  attempted. 
The  cold  and  calculating  pretentiousness  of  the  eighteenth- 
century  style  would  be  received  with  scorn.  They  prefer 
to  write  poetry  about  the  close  and  intimate  things  of  their 
daily  life,  even  at  the  risk  of  a  certain  crudity  and  over- 
literal  tendency  which  often  brings  them  near  to  earth. 
Not  that  they  are  without  a  feeling  for  romance.  The  bulk 
of  their  verse  deals  with  love  and  passion,  not,  however, 
as  our  own  minor  poets  deal  with  it,  discreetly  and  in  the 
genteel  manner  of  the  drawing-room.  There  is  no  writing 
of  odes  to  my  lady's  eyelashes. 

The  "  girls  " — and  they  are  always  the  "  girls  " — some- 
how remind  us  of  the  musical  comedy  type,  big  bosomed, 
fine  and  passionate  creatures  whose  charms  are  catalogued 
with  an  astonishing  lack  of  reticence.  And  they  are  hussies 
some  of  them.  The  sort  of  "  girl "  the  poet  delights  in  is 
the  one  who  in  this  country  would  most  likely  be  met  with 
in  a  Piccadilly  bar  or  in  the  chorus  of  a  revue.  For  the 
highly  conventional  and  carefully  sheltered  miss  of  Suburbia 
he  has  no  use,  unless  it  be  to  make  irreverent  sport  of  her. 
In  short,  all  his  amorous  adventures  have  a  spice  of  naughti- 
ness about  them,  but  the  verse  in  which  they  are  described, 
if  not  exactly  suited  for  a  place  in  the  family  album,  is  never 
dull  and  pretentious.  Out  of  the  stock  of  this  kind  of 
writing  a  vast  deal,  of  course,  is  simply  not  poetry  at  all, 
because,  in  spite  of  what  some  of  the  critics  have  said, 
there  are  subjects  about  which  it  is  impossible  to  write 

155 


The  Poetry  of  New  Lands 


poetry.     One  may  try  manfully  as  Cowley  did  with  the 
frogs  in  "  Plagues  of  Egypt  "  : — 

"  Unsatiate  yet  they  mount  up  higher 
Where  never  sun-born  frog  durst  to  aspire." 

On  the  other  hand,  the  kissing  of  a  girl  in  a  taxi-cab 
may  conceivably,  under  skilful  hands,  yield  a  passionate 
and  moving  ode.  The  "  young  lions  "  of  Australia  have 
not  read  Swinburne  for  nothing,  and  though  he  is  a  dan- 
gerous guide  for  lesser  men,  they  realise,  apparently,  that 
if  sincerity  counts  for  anything — and  they  are  excessively 
sincere^-it  is  the  business  of  amorous  poetry  to  glorify  its 
wild  Bohemianism  and  spill  wine  and  roses  down  the  steeps 
of  Parnassus.  After  all,  the  supreme  test  of  merit  lies 
in  sincerity.  The  reader  of  verse  is  familiar  enough  with 
the  outpourings  of  the  minor  poet  who,  deeming  it  the 
business  of  poetry  to  deal  in  scarlet  sins,  adopts  the  tone 
and  manner  of  the  genuine  artist,  whilst  the  stuff  of  his 
thoughts  remains  merely  the  hysterical  and  quite  con- 
ventional echo  of  the  genuine  article. 

This  is  not  a  charge  that  can  be  brought  against  the 
Australian  poets.  Most  of  them  have  "  learned  in  suffer- 
ing what  they  teach  in  song."  And  their  poetry  is  fresher 
and  more  realistic  and  more  original  for  it,  despite  the 
remark  of  Keats  that — 

"  Almost  any  man  may,  like  the  spider,  spin  from  his  own  inwards, 
his  own  airy  citadel." 

They  have  "  dree'd  their  weird,"  as  Stevenson  said,  and 
come  to  the  writing  trade  in  the  hope  only  of  a  free  artistic 
life  and  some  few  happy  days.  Henry  Kendall,  in  his 

156 


The  Poetry  of  New  Lands 


beautiful  lament  on  the  death  of  his  daughter,  Araluen, 
spoke  of  his  wife : — 

"  Who  because  your  love  was  noble,  faced  with  me  the  lot  austere 
Ever  pressing  with  its  hardships  on  the  man  of  letters  here." 

There  is,  in  the  present-day  poetry  of  the  young  Australian 
writers,  a  general  reluctance  to  achieve  pathos  in  the  simple 
homely  way  of,  say,  Kendall,  in  the  poem  I  have  quoted. 
If  anything,  they  are  ashamed  of  their  tears.  The  sadness 
and  longing  are  there,  the  thoughts  "  too  deep  for  tears," 
and  if  the  tears  should  come,  they  quench  them  in  laughter. 
Rare  comedy  is,  of  course,  very  near  to  tears,  and  so  in 
reading  one  of  those  rollicking  twenty  stanza  poems, 
rough  and  coarse  in  texture,  and  often  a  faint  echo  of 
Kipling,  I  have  suddenly  realised  the  deep  sense  of  pathos 
that  gave  it  birth.  The  situation  is  accepted  in  a  devil- 
may-care  spirit  of  irony  ;  the  cap  and  bells  are  jingled  ; 
"  the  girl's  "  kisses  linger  in  the  memory,  but  the  taste  of 
dead  ashes  is  in  the  mouth.  To  this  our  modern  will 
reply  :  "  The  real  material  of  comedy,  after  all,  is  tragedy." 

But  there  is  the  question  that  insists  on  being  answered, 
when  one  has  become  satiated  with  this  minor  poetry  of 
Australia  :  Is  it  the  right  way  ?  The  spirit  of  Beauty 
cannot  be  cajoled  into  a  tap-room  ballad,  or  imprisoned  in 
a  melodious  song  about  the  "  girls."  The  eighteenth- 
century  poet  made  the  mistake  of  putting  a  ring  fence  round 
his  own  little  plot  of  "  poetical "  subjects  and  ruling  out 
as  unsuitable  material  vast  tracts  of  real  life  around  him. 
But  the  present  danger  is  lest  we  should  run  to  the  other 
extreme,  and,  by  declaring  that  all  things  and  all  forms  of 

157 


The  Poetry  of  New  Lands 


so-called  "  life "  are  legitimate  subjects  for  poetry,  lose 
that  indefinable  sense  of  beauty  which  is,  after  all,  the 
essence  of  great  poetry.  Is  it  better,  in  other  words,  to 
have  the  young  poet  sitting  in  a  garden  "  spinning  from 
his  own  inwards "  than  absorbing  "  life "  among  "  the 
girls  "  who  promenade  in  the  gas  lights  ?  I  dare  say  it  all 
depends  on  the  poet. 


158 


XVII 
A    VENETIAN   ROMANCE 


"To  be  in  love,  where  scorn  is  bought  with  groans; 
Coy  looks,  with  heart-sore  sighs ;  one  fading  moment's  mirth 
With  twenty  watchful,  weary,  tedious  nights : 
If  haply  won,  perhaps,  a  hapless  gain ; 
If  lost,  why  then  a  grievous  labour  won  : 
However,  but  a  folly  bought  with  wit, 
Or  else  a  wit  by  folly  vanquished." 

"  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona" 


XVII 

A  Venetian  Romance 


THE  exquisite  pleasure  with  which  one  discovers 
a  rare  book  at  the  bottom  of  the  twopenny  or 
the  threepenny  box  of  a  bookshop  in  the  Charing 
Cross  Road  is  perhaps  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  real  value 
of  the  find.  But  no  book-lover  would  forego  that  pleasure 
or  wish  it  to  be  diminished.  It  came  my  way  the  other 
day  to  find,  lying  dusty  and  neglected,  Madame  Albrizzi's 
book  of  portraits  of  Venetian  celebrities,  including  the 
sketch  of  Lord  Byron.  These  pages  still  reflect  something 
of  the  glories  of  that  boisterous  period  when  Byron  lived 
out  every  minute  of  his  life  writing,  love-making,  fighting, 
drinking,  with  a  zest  and  abandonment  that  can  only  be 
described  by  the  word  Byronic.  No  other  man  could  have 
set  such  a  pace  or  maintained  it  for  any  length  of  time. 

But  though  this  Venetian  period  was  one  of  utter  moral 
decadence,  it  produced  the  finest  parts  of  "  Don  Juan," 
and  in  the  midst  of  his  revelries  Byron  found  that  "  his 
mind  wanted  something  craggy  to  break  itself  upon," 
and  therefore  set  himself  to  learn  Armenian.  Once  in  his 
early  days  he  remarked  to  his  mother  that  he  liked  very 
much  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  Turk,  and  thought 
of  joining  the  Turkish  army  and  settling  in  Turkey.  The 
M  161 


A  Venetian  Romance 


free  and  easy  morals,  or  rather  the  absence  of  morals,  in 
Venice,  the  picturesque  profligacy  of  its  women  and  the 
forbearance  of  its  husbands,  held  him  captive  to  Venetian 
Society,  where  for  a  time  he  reigned  without  a  rival.  His 
letters  show  that  he  lived  up  to  the  gospel  he  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Don  Juan,  a  rhyming  variant  of  the  Scriptural 
tag :  "  Let  us  have  wine  and  women,  mirth  and  laughter, 
sermons  and  soda  water  the  day  after."  If  he  wanted  an 
excuse  for  his  conduct,  he  found  it  ready  made  in  the 
vicious  theory  that  poetic  genius  has  often  been  allied 
to  moral  weakness  or  physical  infirmity.  Nat  Lee  mad, 
Collins  mad,  Chatterton  mad,  Cowper  mad,  Pope  crooked, 
Milton  blind,  and  a  host  of  others  either  bad  or  mad.  He 
actually  indulged  in  this  reflection  in  a  letter  to  Moore  which 
will  be  found  in  Mr.  Murray's  latest  edition.  More  than 
this,  it  was  only  by  rushing  headlong  into  the  gaieties  of 
the  world,  alternately  making  love,  and  verses,  and  enemies, 
that  his  proud  spirit  could  forget  the  stinging  memory  of 
that  unheroic  retreat  from  England  not  long  before.  Then 
the  temptations  to  a  man  of  his  vanity  and  voluptuousness 
were  legion.  The  palaces  on  the  Grand  Canal  were  full  of 
women  whose  imagination  was  fired  by  the  theatrical 
beauty  of  the  noble  poet.  The  first  season  he  was  the 
lion  of  the  Countess  Albrizzi's  salon,  the  author  of  this  book 
of  portraits  ;  and  the  next  he  was  captured  by  Countess 
Benzoni.  He  moved  on  from  conquest  to  conquest,  his 
heart  was  always  aflame ;  eternally  love-making,  posing, 
preaching.  His  affections  were  first  captured  by  a  draper's 
wife  ;  she  was  succeeded  by  the  partner  of  a  rich  merchant ; 
and  she  in  turn  made  way  for  a  rude  young  Venetian  of 

162 


A  Venetian  Romance 


ferocious  passions  and  rare  devotedness.  Byron's  attitude 
at  this  time  towards  the  outraged  feelings  of  those  whom  he 
had  led  by  a  mischievous  garrulity  to  take  an  interest  in 
everything  he  said  and  did — the  people  in  whom  Byromania 
was  rampant — was  now  one  of  contemptuous  indifference. 
He  cared  neither  for  them  nor  their  morality,  and  declared 
the  longer  he  remained  away  from  England  the  less  cause 
he  saw  for  "  regretting  the  country  or  its  living  contents." 

The  Countess  Teresa  Gamba  Guiccioli,  who  will  always 
be  remembered  as  the  central  figure  of  the  Venetian  period, 
was  an  impressionable  young  Italian  of  high  breeding  and 
superior  education.  It  is  the  story  of  the  Caroline  Lamb 
affair  over  again,  with  the  difference  that  in  this  case  the 
lady  came  fresh  from  a  convent.  She  was  ignorant  of  the 
meaning  of  passion  and  had  just  been  hurried  into  a  mar- 
riage of  convenience  with  a  rich  widower.  The  Count  was 
sixty  and  his  wife  sixteen.  Byron  was  the  young  and 
melancholy  gallant  whose  beauty,  if  anything,  was  heigh- 
tened by  his  dissipations,  and  around  whose  achievements 
in  the  world  of  love  and  letters  there  had  gathered  an 
atmosphere  of  romance.  What  might  not  occur  in  such 
a  situation  ?  The  Countess  was  at  a  party  of  the  Benzonis 
wearing  her  wedding  dress  when  she  encountered  Byron, 
and  straightway  became  his  slave.  Her  description  of 
him  at  this  time  is  in  the  language  of  passionate  adoration. 
She  writes  of  his  "  noble  and  exquisitely  beautiful  counten- 
ance," and  the  tone  of  his  voice  reminds  her  that  some  one 
else  once  spoke  of  Byron  as  "  the  gentleman  with  the 
voice  like  music." 

Nearly  all  the  descriptions  of  the  Countess  agree  as  to 

163 


A  Venetian  Romance 


her  beauty,  which  was  of  the  rich  and  voluptuous  type  so 
often  found  in  the  children  of  the  sun.  Leigh  Hunt,  who 
declined  to  exalt  this  connection  above  the  level  of  any  of 
the  others  in  which  Byron  took  part,  stands  alone  in  his 
view  that  the  lady  was  a  kind  of  buxom  parlour  boarder, 
absurdly  anxious  to  pose  as  a  heroine  by  the  side  of  the 
poet.  But  Leigh  Hunt  showed  bad  feeling  and  jealousy 
of  Byron  in  everything  he  wrote  at  this  period.  Medwin, 
on  the  contrary,  goes  into  ecstacies  over  her.  "  Her  eyes," 
he  writes,  "  large,  dark,  and  languishing,  are  shaded  by 
the  longest  eyelashes  in  the  world  ;  and  her  hair,  which 
is  ungathered  on  her  head,  plays  over  her  falling  shoulders 
in  a  profusion  of  natural  ringlets  of  darkest  auburn.  .  .  . 
She  has  the  most  beautiful  mouth  and  teeth  imaginable. 
It  is  impossible  to  see  without  admiring  her — to  hear  the 
Guiccioli  speak  without  being  fascinated."  Byron  also 
writes  with  equal  enthusiasm,  and  adds  in  reference  to  the 
lady's  mental  accomplishments  that — 

"  If  she  has  blue  stockings  she  contrives  that  her  petticoats  shall 
hide  them." 

The  poet  was  always  like  the  hero  of  Don  Juan  "  with 
women  what  they  please  to  make  or  take  him  for,"  and 
accordingly  the  Countess  soon  found  her  passion  was 
reciprocated.  The  indulgence  of  Italian  husbands  to  their 
wives  was  carried  to  absurd  lengths  by  Count  Guiccioli, 
and  this  paved  the  way  to  the  closest  intimacy.  Byron 
himself  was  strongly  puzzled  and  amazed  by  the  unnatural 
tolerance  of  the  old  aristocrat ;  one  moment  he  half  expects 
a  stiletto  in  his  gizzard  and  another  he  writes  : — 

164 


A  Venetian  Romance 


"  Her  husband  is  a  polite  personage,  but  I  wish  he  would  not 
carry  me  out  in  his  coach  and  six,  like  Whittington  and  his  cat." 

We  soon  find  Byron  professing  to  be  in  the  throes  of  the 
deepest  passion ;  he  loved  the  Countess  "  most  entirely," 
and  declared  in  verse  : — 

"  My  blood  is  all  meridian ;    were  it  not, 
I  had  not  left  my  clime,  nor  should  I  be 
In  spite  of  tortures,  ne'er  to  be  forgot, 
A  slave  again  of  love — at  least  of  thee. 
'Tis  vain  to  struggle — let  me  perish  young, 
Live  as  I  have  lived,  and  love  as  I  have  loved ; 
To  dust  if  I  return,  from  dust  I  sprung, 
And  then  at  least  my  heart  can  ne'er  be  moved." 

However  robust  Byron's  declarations  of  his  love,  one's 
belief  in  their  sincerity  is  not  strengthened  by  reading  the 
coarse  and  vulgar  passages  which  he  uses  in  some  of  his 
letters  about  the  Countess.  One  or  two  of  these  letters  to 
Moore  furnish  some  confirmation  of  Leigh  Hunt's  state- 
ment that  "  you  were  shocked  at  the  licence  which  Byron 
allowed  himself  in  his  criticisms  on  her."  Another  witness 
in  the  person  of  Consul-General  Hoppner,  who  knew  of  the 
liaison  from  the  beginning,  throws  doubt  on  the  genuine- 
ness of  Byron's  professions.  "  It  is  pretty  evident  to  me," 
he  wrote,  "  that  he  at  first  cared  little  for  her,  however 
much  his  vanity  may  have  been  flattered  on  seeing  the 
impression  he  had  made  on  a  young  lady  of  rank  in  society 
so  different  from  the  other  women  he  had  known  since  his 
arrival  in  Venice,"  There  can  be  no  sort  of  doubt  that 
Byron's  passion  for  the  lady  ripened  towards  the  close  of 
his  life.  At  a  time  when,  according  to  the  rules  which 

165 


A  Venetian  Romance 


governed  most  of  his  intrigues,  he  might  have  been  expected 
to  throw  the  Countess  aside,  his  strong  passion  for  her 
was  succeeded  by  a  state  of  feeling  as  nearly  akin  to  dis- 
interested love  as  he  was  capable  of  experiencing.  During 
the  lady's  illness,  his  solicitude  and  attentions  were  so 
manifest  that  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  the  Countess 
incurring  the  suspicion  of  malingering  in  order  to  taste 
the  experience  over  again.  At  one  time  he  read  medical 
treatises  with  a  view  of  treating  her  himself.  He  left  his 
books,  his  horses,  and  all  the  pleasures  of  Venice  in  order 
to  be  by  her  side,  and  even  composed  the  "  Prophecy  "  and 
dropped  "  Don  Juan  "  at  her  bidding. 

Although  Fletcher,  his  valet,  used  to  say  "  Any  woman 
could  manage  my  lord  except  my  lady,"  it  is  certain  none 
of  them  had  ever  before  prevailed  on  Byron  so  far  as  to 
stop  him  scribbling  what  he  liked.  Was  not  Lady  Caroline 
Lamb  powerless  to  prevent  the  publication  of  the  "  Fare- 
well "  ?  Byron  urged  the  Countess  Guiccioli  to  elope 
with  him.  When  Lady  Caroline  Lamb  made  a  similar 
suggestion  to  the  poet,  he  wrote  a  virtuous  refusal.  It  is 
perhaps  of  little  account,  after  all,  that  Byron  should  have 
written  to  Moore  of  the  Countess  in  his  usual  vein  of  coarse 
gallantry  ;  he  was  playing  the  role  of  profligate,  and  had 
he  felt  anything  of  sentiment  or  romance,  he  would  have 
taken  good  care  not  to  show  it.  The  attachment  to 
Countess  Guiccioli,  whether  inspired  by  nothing  deeper 
than  passion  as  Leigh  Hunt  suggests  or  not,  took  such 
complete  possession  of  the  poet  that  he  was  restless  and 
unhappy  out  of  her  company.  He  wrote  her  some  beauti- 
ful love  letters  when  she  was  on  the  Romagnese  estates 

1 66 


A  Venetian  Romance 


with  her  husband,  and  on  receiving  news  that  she  was  ill, 
hurried  at  once  to  her  side.  Medwin  found  them  quite  a 
domesticated  couple,  calling  one  another  pet  names  and 
swearing  that  the  unfortunate  Count  should  never  claim 
his  own.  When  there  was  a  prospect  of  the  Count  locking 
up  the  lady  in  a  convent,  or  taking  other  measures  to 
prevent  her  friendship  with  Byron,  the  pair  talked  of  going 
to  France  or  America,  there  to  settle  down  for  life  together. 
There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  poet  never  wavered 
in  his  affection  to  the  last ;  but  up  to  the  moment  the 
curtain  fell  upon  the  romantic  scene  at  Missolonghi  the 
heart  of  the  man  remained  veiled  and  his  tongue  only 
uttered  words  of  bitterness. 

So  in  this  old  book  of  the  threepenny  box  I  found  the 
skeleton  of  a  singular  romance,  and  under  its  inspiration 
Byron's  gallantries  and  his  letters  exercise  a  new  and 
fascinating  spell. 


167 


XVIII 
WAS   BOS  WELL    A    FOOL? 


"  Between  ourselves  he  is  not  apt  to  encourage  one  to  share  repu- 
tation with  himself." 

Boswell  on  Dr.  Johnson  in  a  letter  to  the  Rev.  W.  J.  Temple. 


XVIII 

Was  Boswell  a  Fool  ? 


IT  is  surely  a  remarkable  thing  that  any  one  with 
the  least  pretensions  to  a  knowledge  of  eighteenth- 
century  literature  should  continue  to  propagate  the 
very  misleading  idea  that  Boswell  was  a  fool.  Macaulay's 
rhetorical  paradoxes,  legitimate  as  they  are  up  to  a  certain 
point,  have  grievously  misled  a  generation  which  passes 
on  its  traditions  from  hand  to  hand  without  examina- 
tion or  revision  and  never  dreams  of  forming  a  first-hand 
opinion  of  its  own.  Many  hundreds  of  quite  intelligent 
readers,  who  pride  themselves  on  their  knowledge  of  books, 
have,  in  respect  of  two  very  great  men — Byron  and  Boswell 
— unconsciously  adopted  the  very  plausible  estimates  of 
their  genius  and  character  that  are  to  be  found  in  Macaulay's 
Essays.  There  is  some  excuse  for  this  display  of  touching 
confidence  in  the  Essays.  It  is  impossible  to  read  Macaulay 
and  to  resist  him.  The  splendour  and  the  picturesqueness 
and  the  vividness  of  his  style  bear  down  very  largely  the 
tendency  to  weigh  carefully  the  judgments  and  to  revise 
the  brief.  Boswell  has  been  the  greater  sufferer  of  the  two 
men,  and  the  very  mention  of  his  name  recalls  the  famous 
saying  connecting  the  art  of  biography  with  the  vice  of 
sycophancy  and  a  conspicuous  lack  of  all  good  taste  and 

171 


Was  Boswell  a  Fool  ? 


good  feeling.  There  are  doubtless  people  who  have  actu- 
ally interpreted  such  passages  as  the  one  I  am  referring 
to  literally,  and  who  admit  without  dispute  the  absurd 
antithesis  which  seeks  to  set  up  a  connection  between  the 
greatness  of  the  book  and  the  foolishness  of  its  author. 
Sometimes  they  get  into  print,  and  not  infrequently  into 
books. 

Whatever  else  he  may  have  been — and  we  know  he  was 
vain  and  dissolute  and  drunken  and  a  bad  husband — 
Boswell  was  not  a  fool.  Those  who  think  so  seem  to  forget 
that  Johnson  was  the  last  man  in  the  world  to  suffer  fools 
lightly,  or,  indeed,  to  suffer  them  at  all ;  that  he  confessed 
to  Boswell  in  a  letter : — 

"  The  oftener  you  are  seen  the  more  you  will  be  liked," 

that  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Boswell : — 

"  The  only  thing  in  which  I  have  the  honour  to  agree  with  you  is 
in  loving  him," 

and  that  one  of  the  last  messages  he  despatched  to  Boswell 
in  Scotland  contained  this  passage  : — 

"  I  love  you  with  great  ardour  and  sincerity." 

These,  you  will  say,  are  protestations  of  personal  affection 
which  might  be  inspired  as  much  by  social  qualities  as  by 
intellectual  eminence.  In  the  case  of  some  men  such  an 
explanation  would  be  sufficient.  But  Johnson  had  too 
fine  a  reverence  for  intellect  and  wisdom,  and  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  whenever  the  pair  came  together  they 
never  failed  to  discuss  subjects  of  the  deepest  importance 

172 


Was  Boswell  a  Fool? 


and  seriousness.  I  sometimes  think  we  are  in  danger 
perhaps  of  omitting  to  give  Boswell  a  fair  share  of  the 
credit  for  the  great  book  with  which  his  name  is  associated. 
He  is  regarded  as  the  reporter,  or,  as  Leslie  Stephen 
called  him,  the  "  up-to-date  interviewer "  who  jotted 
down  the  remarks  of  Johnson  and  faithfully  reproduced 
them  for  our  entertainment.  That  is  taking  a  merely 
mechanical  view  of  the  functions  of  the  biographer,  and  if 
he  had  done  no  more  than  this,  "The  Life  of  Johnson" 
would,  to  use  a  famous  phrase,  hardly  stand  as  the  finest 
heroic  poem  since  the  days  of  Homer. 

Boswell  laid  down  the  lines  of  his  "  Life  of  Johnson  "  very 
early  in  the  acquaintance,  and  proceeded  from  that  moment 
to  garner  the  material  he  required  as  occasion  arose.  It 
will  be  found  by  any  one  who  looks  carefully  into  the  "Life" 
that  Boswell  starts  by  far  the  greatest  number  of  the 
conversations,  and  although  the  introduction  usually  gives 
no  clue  to  what  the  biographer  himself  said,  and  begins 
with  some  such  phrase  as  "  Questioned  as  to  the  wisdom 
of  So-and-so,  Dr.  Johnson  observed,"  we  may  be  quite 
certain  of  one  thing,  that  something  more  than  idle  curiosity 
was  required  to  draw  the  great  man,  and  that  before  enter- 
ing as  fully  as  he  often  did  into  controversial  matters  the 
doctor  must  have  had  his  interest  stirred  by  sound  and 
instructive  argument.  This  need  not  necessarily  involve 
the  theory  that  Boswell  carefully  prepared  the  topics  on 
which  he  should  address  the  doctor.  Very  often,  of  course, 
they  arose  naturally,  and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment.  But 
the  fact  that  in  such  circumstances  Boswell  was  able  to 
maintain  a  controversy  with  so  doughty  a  foe  is  testimony 

173 


Was  Boswell  a  Fool  ? 


to  his  learning  and  ability,  and  in  some  measure  to  his 
wit. 

As  the  result  of  many  years'  study  and  with  the  help  of 
a  friend  I  have  drawn  up  a  short  list  of  some  of  the  con- 
versations started  by  Boswell.  Such  a  list  is  not,  so  far 
as  I  know,  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  editions  of  the  "  Life." 
The  list  is  as  follows  : — 


Analysis  of  Johnson's  Mind  and  Method  of  Discussion  ;  Ghosts ; 
Goldsmith  as  author.  Boswell  wrote,  in  conjunction  with  Mr. 
Dempster,  a  pamphlet  on  this  subject  entitled  "  Critical  Strictures." 
Discusses  it  with  Johnson — Ethics  of  Criticism ;  Boswell  defended 
Churchill's  poetry  against  Johnson ;  Boswell' s  Essay  on  London  ; 
Boswell  on  eminent  writers  during  Queen  Anne's  reign — Dr.  Arbuth- 
not  amongst  others ;  Boswell  persuaded  Voltaire  to  change  his 
opinion  of  Johnson — a  mighty  clever  triumph  ;  Miracles — Relia- 
bility of  records  of :  Boswell  quotes  Hume's  famous  treatise,  with 
which  he  was  very  familiar ;  Preaching — drew  out  Johnson's  famous 
allusions ;  Bishop  Berkeley's  Philosophy  to  prove  non-existence  of 
matter  ;  Old  question  of  Ethics,  whether  advocate  is  morally  justi- 
fied in  defending  a  prisoner  whom  he  knows  to  be  guilty ;  Young's 
"  Night  Thoughts  "  ;  Purgatory  and  Fear  of  Death  ;  Language  and 
English  Pronunciation :  Suggested  new  form  of  Pronouncing 
Dictionary ;  Condition  of  Mortals  in  Future  State ;  Wealth  and 
Proper  Use  of  Riches ;  Duelling — Whether  consistent  with  moral 
duty ;  Migration  of  Birds ;  Toleration  and  the  Propagation  of 
Opinions ;  Gray  and  Mason — Poems  of.  Boswell  held  them  in 
higher  esteem  than  Johnson  did  :  Reasons ;  Salaries  of  Clergy ; 
Garrick — Boswell' s  Defence  of ;  Music  and  its  Effect  on  association 
of  ideas  ;  Analysis  and  Translation  of  Poetry  ;  Freedom  of  Will  and 
Old  Problem  of  Individual  Responsibility — Dr.  Edwards  on  Grace  ; 
Universal  Mystery  of  all  things ;  Selfishness  as  motive  in  practice 
of  virtue ;  Conjugal  Infidelity — Differed  strongly  from  Johnson  ; 
Relative  Merits  of  Painting  and  Poetry. 

It  is  necessary  to  point  out  that  to  present  the  remarks 

174 


Was  Boswell  a  Fool  ? 


of  Dr.  Johnson  in  literary  form,  and  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  enable  us  to  realise  as  vividly  as  we  do  the  individuality 
of  the  man,  his  appearance,  his  habits,  his  prejudices,  the 
vivacity  and  the  singular  charm  of  his  company,  demands 
something  more  than  faithful  reporting.  The  arts  of  selec- 
tion and  presentation  must  be  added  to  the  faculty  for 
quickly  apprehending  the  point  of  a  debate  and  seizing 
on  the  dramatic  quality  of  a  dialogue. 

Consider  for  one  moment  how  many  people  exist  nowa- 
days who  can  convey  with  the  fulness  of  its  original  charm 
and  humour  the  conversation  of  a  notable  man,  or  even 
the  spice  and  flavour  of  a  bon  mot.  And  Johnson's  re- 
marks, we  may  be  sure,  although  containing  the  root  of 
the  matter,  were  not  always  delivered  with  that  finish  and 
unvarying  directness  which  make  them  so  remarkable 
in  their  literary  dress.  Mr.  Chesterton  was  quite  right 
when  he  asked  us  to  bear  in  mind  that  these  observations 
were  poured  out  "  like  remarks  on  the  weather  or  curses 
at  a  daily  paper,  and  taken  down  by  a  man  who  happened 
to  be  listening." 

The  triumphant  achievement  of  Boswell  in  being  able 
to  reproduce  the  salient  points  of  Johnson's  character  and 
manners,  his  wit  and  playfulness,  is  in  itself  a  flat  contra- 
diction of  the  statement  that  he  was  without  either  intellect 
or  humour,  or  that  he  was  narrow  and  intolerant.  A  man 
so  deficient  would  have  turned  out  an  unreadable  jumble 
of  dogmatisms.  He  would  never  have  been  able  to  winnow 
the  good  from  the  bad — for  Johnson,  even  though  he  was 
an  oracle,  must  have  spoken  nonsense  at  times.  Certainly 
the  spirit  of  these  talks  would  have  evaporated  ;  and  with- 

175 


Was  Boswell  a  Fool  ? 


out  that  note  of  singular  frankness  and  simplicity  what 
would  BoswelPs  Life  be  like  ? 

Once  we  are  breast  high  in  such  a  discussion  as  this,  how 
many  interesting  questions  arise  !  For  instance,  all  readers 
of  Johnson  must  have  been  struck  by  the  remarkable 
difference  between  the  great  man's  conversations  and  his 
writings — the  one  concise  and  to  the  point,  "  no  big  words 
to  describe  little  things,"  the  other  too  often  painfully  solid 
and  long  drawn  out.  I  am  not  going  to  suggest  that 
Boswell  is  responsible  for  this  great  difference  in  style. 
Many  men  whose  talk  sparkles  like  champagne  fall  into 
labour  directly  they  take  up  a  pen.  But  it  is  only  fair  to 
assume  that  the  obiter  dicta  of  Johnson  gained  in  sprightli- 
ness  and  freedom  by  passing  through  the  brain  of  so  acute 
and  accomplished  a  man.  People  who  nowadays  laugh 
at  the  repartee  of  Johnson  and  the  discomfiture  of  Boswell 
are  apt  to  harbour  a  feeling  of  contempt  for  the  victim, 
forgetting  that  he  of  his  own  generosity  has  thus  increased 
the  gaiety  of  nations.  Rousseau  says  somewhere  that  a 
man,  if  he  has  to  choose,  will  sooner  do  a  criminal  act  than 
cover  himself  with  ridicule.  It  must  always  remain  a 
moot  question,  I  suppose,  whether  Boswell  really  did 
deliberately  write  himself  down  an  ass  for  the  sake  of  making 
his  book  popular,  or  whether  he  failed  altogether  to  see 
that  the  reader  might  conceivably  think  he  was  an  ass. 
On  one  occasion  he  told  Johnson  that  his  father  continued 
to  amuse  himself  with  "  very  small  matters."  "  I  have 
tried  this,"  he  continued,  "  but  it  would  not  do  with  me." 
Johnson  (laughing)  :  "  No,  sir ;  it  must  be  born  with  a 
man  to  be  contented  to  take  up  with  little  things."  Now 

176 


Was  Boswell  a  Fool  ? 


obviously  Johnson  was  laughing  here  at  the  conceit  of 
Boswell,  and  this  was  perhaps  one  of  the  few  instances 
where  the  biographer  failed  to  perceive  it.  But  does  any 
one  imagine  that  Boswell,  with  his  intelligence  and  rare 
sense  of  humour,  was  not  fully  conscious  of  the  absurdity 
of  many  of  the  things  he  repeated,  and  the  questions  he 
addressed  to  Johnson  ?  That  interrogation  about  the  baby 
in  the  castle,  considering  to  whom  it  was  addressed,  is 
funnier  than  anything  else  in  the  book  ;  and  the  incon- 
gruity of  the  spectacle  of  Johnson  with  a  baby  on  his 
hands  must  have  come  home  in  full  force  to  the  lively 
imagination  of  the  Scot.  Boswell  once  professed  to  be 
melancholy  because  in  any  new  state  of  being  the  sonnets 
of  Shakespeare  would  not  exist.  A  lady  relieved  him  by 
observing  "  the  first  thing  you  will  meet  with  in  the  other 
world  will  be  an  elegant  copy  of  Shakespeare's  works  pre- 
sented to  you."  He  repeated  this  to  Johnson,  who  smiled 
and  "  did  not  disapprove  the  notion  " — how  delicious  the 
quiet  humour  of  this  last  sentence,  suggesting  as  it  does 
that  Boswell  was  quite  satisfied  now  with  the  prospect 
of  getting  his  Shakespeare  in  Paradise.  Here,  to  my  mind, 
you  have  Boswell,  the  conscious  artist,  at  the  back  of  the 
picture,  touching  up  and  adding  a  few  strokes  to  emphasise 
the  greatness  of  the  central  picture.  For  Boswell  was  an 
artist,  and  the  sooner  we  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  he,  so  to 
speak,  had  this  incomparable  biography  thrown  ready 
made  into  his  hands  by  Johnson  the  better. 


177 


XIX 
SOME  THOUGHTS  ON  CHARLES  LAMB 


"It  is  a  proud  as  well  as  pleasant  thing 
To  hear  thy  good  report,  now  borne  along 
Upon  the  honest  breath  of  public  praise  : 
We  know  that  with  the  elder  song  of  song, 
In  honoring  whom  thou  hast  delighted  still, 
Thy  name  shall  keep  its  course  to  after  days." 

Southey. 


XIX 

Some  Thoughts  on  Charles  Lamb 


ONE  cannot  help  thinking  that  Charles  Lamb, 
with  his  unfailing  sense  of  humour,  would  have 
detected  a  genuine  sporting  interest  in  the 
spectacle  of  three  or  four  accomplished  scholars  rummaging 
about  in  the  bypaths  of  Elizabethan  literature  for  the 
source  of  obscure  references  and  quotations  in  his  writings. 
Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas,  Mr.  Macdonald,  and  Mr.  Craig,  the  Shake- 
spearian scholar,  have  invested  the  chase  with  all  the 
excitement  of  a  missing  word  competition.  No  one  would 
be  more  surprised  than  Elia  himself,  could  he  revisit  the 
glimpses  of  the  moon  and  see  from  various  new  editions  of 
his  works  with  what  success  he  has  been  tracked  from  folio 
to  folio,  and  how,  even  when  quotation  marks  were  absent, 
these  vigilant  students  have  run  his  wandering  thoughts 
to  earth  in  some  dusty  play  or  half-forgotten  poem.  But 
there  is  compensation  for  these  explorers.  To  edit  Charles 
Lamb  thoroughly  must  be  a  liberal  education  in  the 
beauties  of  seventeenth  and  eighteenth-century  literature. 
All  his  essays  have  a  flavouring  of  the  old  dramatists,  of 
Sir  Thomas  Browne,  of  Spenser,  of  Milton,  and  with  that 
native  critical  instinct  that  made  him  so  delightful  a  guide 
to  the  best  letters  of  his  day  he  invariably  lights  upon 
thoughts  and  phrases  well  worth  remembering.  He  had 

181 


Some  Thoughts  on  Charles  Lamb 

his  favourite  authors  and  his  favourite  quotations,  and 
there  is  probably  not  a  genuine  Elian  who  has  not  adopted 
one  or  two  of  them. 

Margaret,  Duchess  of  Newcastle,  "  that  princely  woman, 
thrice  noble,"  is  a  sort  of  King  Charles's  head  with  Lamb. 
He  cannot  shower  too  many  eulogies  on  her,  and  when  a 
Philistine  friend  borrowed  the  precious  letters,  how  vehe- 
mently he  protested.  Lamb's  collection  of  fine  phrases 
is  unequalled  anywhere,  and  they  seem  to  slip  into  his 
writings  as  though  they  had  been  born  for  no  other  place. 
Lamb  never  lugged  in  his  quotations  by  the  ears.  If  they 
came  there,  it  was,  so  to  speak,  because  he  could  not  stop 
them.  They  leaped  out  on  to  the  page.  Sometimes,  too, 
a  striking  phrase  or  a  simile  passed  through  his  mind  and 
emerged  for  a  fitting  occasion  in  a  dress  which  the  original 
author  would  not  have  despised.  I  always  remember  one 
fine  phrase  that  occurs  during  that  rather  lugubrious 
dissertation  on  dying  in  "  New  Year's  Eve."  "  Shall  I," 
asked  Lamb,  "  enjoy  friendships  there,  wanting  the  smiling 
indication  which  point  me  to  them  here — the  recognisable 
face — '  the  sweet  assurance  of  a  look.' ':  That  sweet 
assurance  of  a  look  !  How  admirably  chosen  the  phrase, 
and  Lamb  had  really  no  cause  to  put  it  in  quotation  marks. 
It  is  as  original  as  a  great  many  of  Pope's  lines.  It  may 
have  come  from  Matthew  Roydon's  Elegy  on  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  or  it  may  not : — 

"  A  sweet  attractive  kinde  of  grace, 
A  full  assurance  given  by  lookes, 
Continuall  comfort  in  a  face. 
The  lineaments  of  Gospell  bookes." 
182 


Some  Thoughts  on  Charles  Lamb 

Lamb  was  very  fond  of  the  phrase,  and  he  used  it  several 
times.  The  other  day  the  editor  of  a  new  Macaulay 
pointed  out  how  the  simile  of  the  famous  New  Zealander 
(which,  by  the  way,  did  not  originate  with  Macaulay  at  all) 
so  pleased  the  author  of  the  Essays  that  he  used  it  over  and 
over  again.  Lamb  used  to  give  his  best  phrases  plenty  of 
work.  The  following  remark  of  Octavius  in  "  Antony  and 
Cleopatra  "  was  transplanted  from  the  play  to  many  of 
Elia's  writings  : — 

"  He  at  Philippi  kept 
His  sword  e'en  like  a  dancer." 


Field,  the  schoolmaster,  is  described  as  "  wielding  the 
cane  with  no  great  goodwill — holding  it  '  like  a  dancer.' ' 
And  "  Mrs.  Battle,  who  hated    your  dilettante  at  whist, 
used  not  her  good  sword  (her  cards)  '  like  a  dancer.' ': 

Who  was  Mrs.  Battle  ?     Many  lovers  of  Elia  have  asked 

— and  "  fair  Alice  W ,"  and  all  the  other  familiar  people 

whose  identities  are  veiled  behind  bare  initials  in  the  essays? 
There  is  pretty  conclusive  evidence,  as  most  of  Lamb's 
editors  have  shown,  that  this  oft-quoted  lady  was  suggested 
by  Sarah  Burney,  the  wife  of  Rear-Admiral  James  Burney, 
at  whose  house  Lamb  and  Hazlitt  and  many  others  used 
to  play  whist.  Hazlitt  in  his  essay  on  "  The  Pleasures  of 
Hating  "  makes  reference  to  these  parties  : — 

"  What  is  become  of  '  that  set  of  whist-players,'  celebrated  by 
Elia  in  his  notable  Epistle  to  Robert  Southey,  Esq.  (and  now  I  think 
of  it — that  I  myself  have  celebrated  in  this  very  volume),  '  that  for 
so  many  years  called  Admiral  Burney  friend  ?  '  They  are  scattered, 
like  last  year's  snow.  Some  of  them  are  dead,  or  gone  to  live  at  a 
distance,  or  pass  one  another  in  the  street  like  strangers,  or  if  they 
stop  to  speak,  do  it  as  coolly  and  try  to  cut  one  another  as  soon  as 

183 


possible.  Some  of  us  have  grown  rich,  others  poor.  Some  have  got 
places  under  Government,  others  a  niche  in  the '  Quarterly  Review.' 
Some  of  us  have  dearly  earned  a  name  in  the  world  ;  whilst  others 
remain  in  their  original  privacy.  We  despise  the  one,  and  envy  and 
are  glad  to  mortify  the  other." 

As  to  "  Alice  W ,"  readers  will  remember  how  in  that 

perfect  example  of  beautiful  prose  Lamb  told  how  for 
"  seven  long  years,  in  hope  sometimes,  sometimes  in  despair, 

yet  persisting  ever,  I  courted  fair  Alice  W n,  and,  as 

much  as  children  could  understand,  I  explained  to  them 
what  coyness  and  diffidence  and  denial  meant  in  maidens 
— when  suddenly  turning  to  Alice  the  soul  of  the  first  Alice 
looked  out  at  her  eyes  with  such  a  reality  of  representment 
that  I  became  in  doubt  which  of  them  stood  there  before 
me,  or  whose  that  bright  hair  was  ;  and  while  I  stood 
gazing,  both  the  children  gradually  grew  fainter  to  my 
view,  receding  and  still  receding  till  nothing  at  last  but 
two  mournful  features  were  seen  in  the  uttermost  distance, 
which,  without  speech,  strangely  impressed  upon  me  the 
effects  of  speech.  '  We  are  not  of  Alice,  nor  of  thee,  nor 
are  we  children  at  all.' ': 

So  far  as  Lamb's  indefatigable  editors  have  been  able  to 
ascertain  there  is  no  foundation  for  the  statement  that 
Lamb  courted  a  girl  for  seven  years.  It  is  well  known 
that  he  sacrificed  himself  for  his  sister's  sake,  and  certainly 
in  1796,  he  wrote  to  Coleridge  in  reference  to  the  love 
sonnets  : — 

"It  is  a  passion  of  which  I  retain  nothing.  Thank  God,  the 
folly  has  left  me  for  ever.  Not  even  a  review  of  my  love  verses 
renews  one  wayward  wish  in  me." 

184 


Some  Thoughts  on  Charles  Lamb 

We  have  learned  from  Mr.  John  Hollingshead  that 
subsequent  to  this  date  the  actress,  Miss  Frances  Kelly, 
inspired  the  essayist  with  a  grand  passion,  and  in  one  edition 
of  his  works  the  letter  of  proposal  and  Miss  Kelly's  reply 
are  published.  But  Elia,  one  cannot  help  thinking  from 
certain  allusions  in  his  "  Bachelor's  Complaint  of  the 
Behaviour  of  Married  People,"  took  a  cynical  view  of 
matrimony.  There  is  nothing  at  all  to  be  surprised  at  in 
this.  The  experience  of  his  friend  Coleridge  was  not  very 
encouraging.  But  married  or  not,  his  tender  guardianship 
of  his  infirm  sister  is  one  of  the  most  touching  episodes 
in  literature. 

It  is  sometimes  remembered  against  Lamb  that  with 
Swift,  Johnson,  Byron,  and  many  other  eminent  men 
of  letters,  he  had  no  patience  with  the  Scotch.  Their 
solidity  and  utter  lack  of  humour  got  on  his  nerves.  Swift 
bitingly  observed  that  if  a  Scotchman's  talk  was  not 
enlivened  by  his  uncouth  terms  and  phrases  as  well  as 
accent  and  gesture  peculiar  to  the  country,  it  would  be 
hardly  tolerable.  A  good  deal  of  the  bitterness  felt  against 
the  Scotch  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
due  no  doubt  to  the  violence  and  rancour  of  "  Blackwood  " 
and  "  The  Edinburgh  Review."  Lamb,  for  instance,  came 
within  the  category  of  what  was  termed  "  The  Cockney 
poets."  The  Elian  attacks,  however,  did  not  excite  the 
bitterness  they  would  have  done  coming  from  a  less  lovable 
man  ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  delicacy,  raillery,  and  gentle 
sarcasm  of  the  allusions  in  "  Imperfect  Sympathies,"  was 
thrown  into  the  scale  against  the  author's  well-known  ad- 
miration for  Burns.  Barry  Cornwall  says  he  once  saw 

185 


Some  Thoughts  on  Charles  Lamb 

Lamb  kiss  his  copy  of  Burns's  poems.  There  were  no  such 
redeeming  traits  about  Mr.  Henley.  In  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas's 
valuable  notes,  I  find  the  following  allusion  to  this  topic  : 

"  Lamb's  criticism  of  Scotchmen  did  not  pass  without  comment. 
The  pleasantest  remark  made  upon  it  was  that  of  Christopher  North 
(John  Wilson)  some  dozen  years  later  (after  he  had  met  Lamb), 
in  a  '  Blackwood  '  paper  entitled  '  Twaddle  on  Tweedside '  (May, 
1833),  wherein  he  wrote  : — 

"  '  Charles  Lamb  ought  really  not  to  abuse  Scotland  in  the 
pleasant  way  he  so  often  does  in  the  sylvan  shades  of  Enfield  ;  for 
Scotland  loves  Charles  Lamb  ;  but  he  is  wayward  and  wilful  in  his 
wisdom,  and  conceits  that  many  a  Cockney  is  a  better  man  even  than 
Christopher  North.  But  what  will  not  Christopher  forgive  to  Genius 
and  Goodness  ?  Even  Lamb  bleating  libels  on  his  native  land. 
Nay,  he  learns  lessons  of  humanity,  even  from  the  mild  malice  of 
Elia,  and  breathes  a  blessing  on  him  and  his  household  in  their 
Bower  of  Rest.'  " 

I  now  come  back  to  the  original  point  of  these  reflections. 
Lamb  is  richer  in  commentators  than  any  other  man  of 
letters  of  his  time,  and  the  question  may  be  asked  whether, 
although  too  many  editions  of  his  works  cannot  be  printed, 
there  is  not  a  danger  of  overdoing  the  craze  for  analysis 
and  investigation.  The  inquiries  into  the  identity  of 

"  Alice  W and  Mrs.  Battle  "  and  many  other  people 

whose  doings  have  interested  us  is  legitimate  enough ;  but 
the  detailed  explanations  of  certain  passages,  the  com- 
parisons, the  verbal  trivialities  are  apt  to  spoil  one's  enjoy- 
ment of  a  rich  feast. 


1 86 


XX 
IN   PRAISE   OF   DULNESS 


1 1  venerate  on  honest  obliquity  of  understanding." 

Charles  Lamb. 


XX 

In  Praise  of  Dulness 


I  HAVE  often  thought  that  the  man  who  neither 
writes  himself  nor  is  sensible  of  what  other  people 
write  has  perhaps  in  the  long  run  the  greatest 
measure  of  felicity.  Soon  after  the  dreadful  fire  in  Chicago 
I  asked  a  farm  labourer  in  Yorkshire  if  he  had  read  in  the 
newspapers  of  the  calamity.  "  I  never  read  newspapers," 
was  his  reply,  "  and  him  as  reads  now't  knaws  now't," 
intending  by  the  remark  to  suggest  that  his  feelings  were 
thus  spared  the  torrent  of  worry  over  unpleasant  and  dis- 
agreeable things.  Mr.  George  Gissing  in  "  New  Grub 
Street,"  and  again  in  "  The  Private  Papers  of  Henry  Rye- 
croft,"  has  dwelt  realistically  on  the  strain  and  weariness 
and  futility  of  constant  literary  activity,  and  the  petty 
jealousies  and  bickerings  that  inevitably  beset  the  path  of 
the  man  who  is  moderately  successful  with  his  pen.  Like 
other  writers,  he  turns  with  a  feeling  of  envy  to  two  classes, 
the  non-writer  and  non-reader  (that  is,  of  everything  except 
the  classics  and  Shakespeare),  and  to  the  amiable  mediocrity. 
The  mediocrity  and  the  dull  man  may  lose  a  great  deal, 
but  assuredly  they  gain  something  also  ;  and  if  the  balance 
of  happiness  had  been  struck,  say,  between  Burns  and  one 
of  his  fellow-ploughmen  who  knew  nothing  of  poetry,  and 

189 


In  Praise  of  Dulness 


had  never  met  Clarinda,  the  bard  would  certainly  get  the 
worst  of  it.  Thackeray  was  struck  by  the  advantages  of 
dulness.  "  What  a  deal  of  grief,  care,  and  other  harmful 
excitement,"  he  wrote,  "  does  a  healthy  dulness  and  cheer- 
ful insensibility  avoid.  Dulness  is  a  much  finer  gift  than 
we  give  it  credit  for  being." 

In  the  literary  trade,  as  in  other  walks  of  life,  it  is  the 
merely  average  man  with  no  special  talents  that  raise  him 
above  his  fellows  who  has  most  friends,  and  gets  most 
enjoyment  out  of  life.  An  endowment  of  cheerful  insensi- 
bility is  invaluable,  and  this  is  precisely  the  quality  which 
will  be  found  lacking  in  most  literary  men.  They,  who  are 
least  able  to  bear  them,  write  and  say  the  hardest  things 
of  one  another.  How  sorely  Keats  was  wounded  by 
Byron's  sneer  about  his  gallipots  every  one  knows.  Shelley 
remembered  that  when  he  wrote  those  exquisite  lines  : — 

"  He  has  outsoared  the  shadows  of  our  night, 
Envy  and  hate  and  calumny  and  pain.  .  .  ." 

Byron  hurled  his  bolts  at  the  critics  recklessly,  and  pro- 
fessed to  regard  their  verdicts  on  himself  and  his  work  with 
complete  indifference.  But  no  one  reading  his  letters  can 
ever  doubt  of  his  extreme  sensibility  and  vanity.  The 
brave  show  of  being  otherwise  was  merely  of  a  piece  with 
those  studied  histrionics  that  began  the  moment  he  sailed 
away  from  England. 

Hazlitt  speaks  of  the  penalties  that  beset  the  man  who 
breaks  away  from  the  quiet  and  uneventful  shades  of 
mediocrity  to  essay  distinction  in  letters.  There  seems 
to  me  more  than  a  mere  suspicion  of  resemblance  between 

190 


In  Praise  of  Dulness 


this  lively  piece  of  writing  and  a  paper  of  Dr.  Johnson's  in 
"  The  Rambler,"  on  "  The  Dangers  and  Miseries  of  a  Liter- 
ary Eminence."  They  both  exhibit  with  great  humour 
and  naturalness  the  disturbing  obligations  that  descend 
on  the  man  who  presumes  to  be  cleverer  than  his  friends. 
Dr.  Johnson,  writing  in  an  imaginary  character,  says  : — 

"  I  naturally  love  to  talk  without  much  thinking,  to  scatter  my 
merriment  at  random,  and  to  relax  my  thoughts  with  ludicrous 
remarks  and  fanciful  images ;  but  such  is  now  the  importance  of 
my  opinion  that  I  am  afraid  to  offer  it,  lest,  by  being  established 
too  hastily  into  a  maxim,  it  should  be  the  occasion  of  error  to  half 
the  nation  ;  and  such  is  the  expectation  with  which  I  am  attended, 
when  I  am  going  to  speak,  that  I  frequently  pause  to  reflect  whether 
what  I  am  about  to  utter  is  worthy  of  myself." 

Hazlitt's  experience,  whether  imaginary  or  not,  corres- 
ponded exactly  with  Johnson's,  and  how  many  writers 
have  not  discovered  since  that  the  world  always  insists  on 
a  man's  living  up  to  his  pretensions  even  in  the  smallest 
affairs.  The  author  of  "  Table  Talk "  thus  explains  his 
position  : — 

"  I  must  occasionally  lie  fallow.  The  kind  of  conversation  I 
affect  most  is  what  sort  of  a  day  it  is,  and  whether  it  is  likely  to 
rain  or  hold  up  fine  for  to-morrow.  ...  I  would  resign  myself  to 
this  state  of  easy  indifference,  but  I  find  I  cannot.  I  must  main- 
tain a  certain  pretension  which  is  far  enough  from  my  wish.  I 
must  be  put  on  my  defence,  I  must  take  up  the  gauntlet  continually 
or  I  find  I  lose  ground.  .  .  .  While  I  am  thinking  what  o'clock  it  is, 
or  how  I  came  to  blunder  in  quoting  a  well-known  passage  as  if  I 
had  done  it  on  purpose,  others  are  thinking  whether  I  am  not  really 
as  dull  a  fellow  as  I  am  sometimes  said  to  be." 

It  was  continually  thrown  in  his  teeth  that  he  was  an 
author  ;  and  while  Hazlitt  complains  that  even  at  cribbage 

191 


In  Praise  of  Dulness 


his  friends  supposed  this  entitled  them  to  peg  a  hole  or  two 
in  the  game,  Johnson's  fame  cost  him  in  one  week,  "  two 
hogsheads  of  port,  fifteen  gallons  of  arrack,  ten  dozen  of 
claret,  and  five  and  forty  bottles  of  champagne." 

There  is  something  to  be  said  on  the  other  side.  A 
writer  whom  the  public  is  disposed  to  accept  so  far  on  his 
own  valuation  can  venture  further  than  the  average  man 
in  most  subjects,  and  boldness  and  assurance  will  often 
enough  serve  as  an  excellent  cloak  for  ignorance.  Few 
men  have  the  candour  of  Dr.  Johnson,  who,  when  asked 
by  the  old  lady  why  he  had  described  "  pastern  "  as  "  the 
knee  of  a  horse  "  in  his  dictionary,  replied  briefly,  "  Ignor- 
ance, madam,  sheer  ignorance  !  " 

The  mere  fact  of  a  man's  writing  at  all  is  indisputably  a 
recommendation  to  the  respect  if  not  to  the  admiration 
of  the  public.  He  becomes  at  once  a  person  of  some  dis- 
tinction. In  that  terribly  depressing  book  of  Mr.  Gissing's 
to  which  I  have  referred — "  New  Grub  Street " — Carter, 
the  hospital  secretary,  a  merely  common-place  creature 
with  no  brains  to  speak  of,  condescends  to  treat  Reardon, 
his  clerk,  as  more  of  an  equal  when  he  finds  out  that  he 
has  written  a  novel.  His  distant  manner  and  chilly 
patronage  evaporate  for  a  smiling  affability  tempered  by 
a  certain  awe  of  the  man's  powers. 

The  merit  of  being  able  to  write  has  been  grossly  exag- 
gerated by  those  who  regard  printed  matter  as  the  most 
significant  thing  in  the  world.  After  all,  it  is  nothing  of 
the  kind.  One  cannot  help  sharing  Carlyle's  admiration 
of  his  father  because  he  built  a  house  with  his  own  hands. 
Macaulay  declared  in  an  ecstacy  of  literary  devotion  that 

192 


In  Praise  of  Dulness 


if  he  were  offered  a  kingdom  and  a  crown  on  condition 
that  he  gave  up  reading  he  would  refuse  them  and  keep  his 
books.  The  hypothetical  offer  was  not  a  fair  one,  kingdoms 
and  crowns  being  notoriously  as  harassing  as  writing  ;  but 
the  world  contains  many  things  more  desirable  than  books, 
and  it  is  a  silly  affectation  not  openly  to  acknowledge  it. 
As  a  wise  man  has  said,  it  is  better  to  be  able  neither  to 
read  nor  write  than  to  be  able  to  do  nothing  else.  But  it 
is  a  fine  thing  to  be  a  scratch  man  at  golf.  A  dullard  may 
fail  to  comprehend  the  philosophy"  of  the  ancients  or  feel 
the  magic  power  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets.  That  does 
not  argue  him  dead  to  the  substantial  things  of  Nature. 
An  "  impulse  from  a  vernal  wood  "  may  reach  him  in  spite 
of  his  artistic  limitations.  The  dull  man,  the  non-reading 
man,  moreover  is  far  likelier  to  make  both  himself  and 
other  people  happy  because  he  is  in  a  big  majority. 

Let  the  dull  man  rejoice  ;  he  is  far  happier  than  he  wots 
of. 


193 


XXI 
THE    CHILDREN    OF   BOOKS 


"Children  are  like  soldiers;    they  have  their  days  off  duty." 

Ruskin 


XXI 

The  Children  of  Books 


WHEN  Mr.  Swinburne,  in  his  famous  article  on 
Dickens,    remarked    that   Little   Nell    was    an 
inhuman  prodigy — the  sort  of  creature  that  is 
matched   in   physical   abnormality   by   a   baby   with   two 
heads — he  touched  on  what  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the 
most   striking   limitations   of   the   master's    art.     All   his 
children  are  miracles  of  pathos  or  of  humour,  but  they  are 
never  really  alive. 

A  very  fascinating  chapter  might  be  written  about  the 
Child  in  Fiction.  How  many  of  our  great  novelists  have 
given  us  children  of  real  flesh  and  blood,  and  not  strange 
examples  of  awful  precosity  artfully  posed  for  our  sympathy 
or  our  laughter?  Very  few  indeed.  And  there  is  nothing 
surprising  in  this  when  you  remember  that  the  mere  fact 
of  bringing  a  child  into  fiction  at  all,  and  giving  it  a  sub- 
stantial part  to  play  in  any  human  story,  is  in  a  sense 
raising  it  out  of  its  own  rank  of  childhood  and  setting  it 
among  the  Olympians.  The  majority  of  children  are 
happily  normal,  and  the  normal  child  has  rarely  begun  to 
think  and  is  nearly  always  free  from  sentiment.  But  in  the 
novel  how  different.  There  seems  to  be  an  essential  quality 
of  some  kind  in  the  essence  of  childhood  which  is  never 

197 


The  Children  of  Books 


recaptured  by  upgrown  men  and  women,  and  the  result 
is  we  get  only  a  feeble  reflection  of  the  glory  of  those  days. 
The  Child  of  Fiction  is  almost  always  a  little  Hero  or  a 
little  Sinner,  and  in  any  case  he  (or  she)  is  clever  and  self- 
conscious,  and  must  be  eternally  on  exhibition. 

It  does  not  follow  that  a  fondness  for  children  and  an 
intimacy  with  their  ways  will  enable  a  writer  to  draw  a 
perfectly  convincing  child,  or  both  Dickens  and  Haw- 
thorne would  have  succeeded  much  better  than  they  did. 

In  reviewing  the  children  who,  because  of  the  places  they 
occupy  in  the  Story  Books  of  the  World,  may  be  fitly 
named  Little  Immortals,  that  strange,  fantastic,  unworldly 
little  sprite,  Pearl,  of  "  The  Scarlet  Letter,"  trips  at  once 
on  to  our  page.  "  Little  Pearl,"  like  "  Donatello,"  who 
has  something  of  the  same  unearthly  witchery  about 
him,  stands  apart  from  all  the  children  of  books.  She  is  a 
wild,  elfish  fairy,  who  belongs  only  by  right  to  that  my- 
sterious shadowland  in  which  Hester  Prynne  and  Arthur 
Dimmesdale  played  out  the  tragedy  of  their  fate.  Haw- 
thorne, in  his  endeavour  to  create  a  child  whose  wild 
temperament  and  disposition  should  partake  of  the  evil 
passion  which  had  given  it  birth,  and  thereby  heighten  the 
retribution  of  the  unhappy  mother,  stepped  outside  all 
natural  bounds,  and  made  of  "  Pearl "  a  little  devil,  or 
at  any  rate  a  creature  only  half  human  and  old  far  beyond 
her  years.  At  the  same  time  no  lover  of  Hawthorne  would 
have  Little  Pearl  other  than  she  is,  for  the  sufficient  reason 
that  she  belongs  to  the  sombre  picture  of  New  England 
Puritanism  ;  and  as  in  the  meeting  between  Hester  and 
the  minister  in  the  forest  her  gay  personality  supplies  a 

198 


The  Children  of  Books 


necessary  touch  of  colour  that  brings  out  in  all  its  intensity 
the  overpowering  pathos  of  that  masterly  scene.  There 
is  no  more  dramatic  chapter  in  the  whole  of  American  fiction 
than  the  one  describing  Hester's  attempt  to  rid  herself  of 
the  Scarlet  Letter  and  her  detection  by  the  child.  But  we 
feel  that  there  is  some  demoniacal  force  which  has  nothing 
in  common  with  the  simple,  unaffected  nature  of  child- 
hood, compelling  her  to  add  still  further  torture  to  the 
broken  woman  she  calls  mother.  Every  one  remembers 
that  picture  of  Pearl,  standing  over  the  brook  watching 
the  discarded  letter,  the  badge  of  shame,  floating  away  on 
the  waters  : — 

"  Seen  in  the  brook  once  more  was  the  shadowy  wraith  of  Pearl's 
image  crowned  and  girdled  with  flowers,  but  stamping  its  foot, 
wildly  gesticulating,  and  in  the  midst  of  all,  still  pointing  its  small 
fore-finger  at  Hester's  bosom." 

No  real  child  of  seven  this,  one  exclaims — but  merely 
the  form  and  figure  of  a  child  designed  by  the  author  to 
suit  his  purpose,  which  was  to  intensify  the  bitterness  of 
that  retributive  process.  Hawthorne's  characters  have 
all  more  or  less  the  same  indefinable  touch  of  mystery, 
and  to  encounter  little  Phoebe,  the  angel  of  that  dull  House 
of  the  Seven  Gables,  is  to  recognise  in  her  something  akin 
to  the  fine-souled  Hilda,  the  heroine  of  "  The  Marble 
Faun,"  or  the  rich,  voluptuous  Zenobia  in  "  The  Blithedale 
Romance."  Phoebe,  however,  in  her  best  moments,  is  a 
quite  natural  and  delightful  child,  whose  progress  to 
womanhood  we  watch  with  a  touching  solicitude,  rejoicing 
that  at  last  she  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  loving 
Holgrave. 

199 


The  Children  of  Books 


Dickens's  children  afford  unlimited  material  for  such  a 
causerie  as  this.  Who  does  not  know  intimately  one  or 
other  of  that  famous  gallery  comprising  David  Copperfield, 
Paul  Dombey,  Oliver  Twist,  Little  Nell,  Little  Emily, 
Master  Bardell,  Smike,  and  The  Artful  Dodger  ?  Yet  all 
of  them,  with  perhaps  the  single  exception  of  Copperfield 
(and  he  is  a  bit  of  a  plaster  saint),  are  not,  in  the  real  sense 
of  the  word,  normal  children ;  they  are  brought  into  the 
picture  by  virtue  of  some  singular  quality  that  makes  them 
either  humorous  or  pathetic  ;  and  away  from  the  glamour 
of  the  limelight  we  should  accept  them  only  as  caricatures. 
Little  Emily  and  Little  Nell  are  obviously  not  for  this 
world — Heaven  is  their  home.  The  same  may  be  said  of 
Paul,  and  David  Copperfield.  Copperfield,  although  he 
shows  manliness  enough  on  both  occasions  when  fortune 
goes  against  him,  is  eternally  using  his  pocket-handker- 
chief. Micawber's  tears,  for  example,  we  can  understand. 
They  are  of  the  crocodile  variety,  but  Copperfield,  then  a 
boy  of  eighteen,  loses  some  part  of  his  manliness  by  crying 
at  the  sight  of  Agnes  : — 

"  She  looked  so  quiet  and  good,  and  reminded  me  so  strongly 
of  my  airy,  fresh  school-days  at  Canterbury,  and  the  sodden,  smoky, 
stupid  wretch  I  had  been  the  other  night ;  that,  nobody  being  by, 
I  yielded  to  my  self-reproach  and  shame — and  in  short,  made  a 
fool  of  myself.  I  cannot  deny  that  I  shed  tears." 

Copperfield,  in  short,  makes  a  luxury  of  woe. 
Thackeray  has  drawn  children  better  probably  than  any 
of  the  last-century  novelists  ;  and  "  Pendennis,"  which  is 
as  largely  biographical  as  "  Copperfield,"  contains  one  of 
the  sincerest  pictures  of  childhood  to  be  found  within  the 

200 


The  Children  of  Books 


covers  of  a  book.  Thackeray's  rebellion  against  the  early 
Victorian  convention  which  forbade  the  novelist  to  dwell 
too  intimately  on  the  temptations  of  youth  is  set  forth  in 
his  preface  : — 

"  Many  ladies  have  remonstrated,  and  subscribers  left  me,  because 
in  the  course  of  the  story  I  described  a  young  man  resisting  and 
affected  by  temptation.  My  object  was  to  say  that  he  had  passions 
to  face,  and  the  manliness  and  generosity  to  overcome  them." 

Pen's  little  vulgarities  of  dress  and  manner,  that  almost 
invariably  mark  the  transition  of  youth  to  that  state  of 
adolescence  bordering  on  manhood  ;  his  selfishness,  and 
rudeness  to  his  mother  and  sister,  and  above  all  that  inimit- 
able calf  love  affair  with  the  Fotheringay  of  the  Theatre 
Royal,  are  among  the  traits  that  add  to  the  reality  of  the 
picture.  Every  one  can  truly  say  that  they  have  met  and 
known  dozens  of  such  boys,  whose  hearts  were  in  the  right 
place,  though  they  looked  to  it  that  their  handkerchiefs 
were  not  too  frequently  employed.  But  if  we  are  to  name 
the  one  boyish  character  of  Thackeray's  of  whom  it  can  be 
said  that  he  is  free  altogether  from  the  attitudinisings  and 
sham  sentimentalities  of  the  ordinary  hero  of  fiction,  it 
would  be  "  Henry  Esmond,  Esq." — perhaps  the  greatest 
boy  in  the  realm  of  fiction,  not  forgetting  even  Tom  Brown. 
Thackeray,  so  certain  of  his  ground  when  he  is  dealing  with 
boys,  declines  on  to  the  lower  plane  altogether  when  he 
has  to  depict  feminine  juvenility.  Compare  Sophia  Western 
with  that  insipid  creature  Amelia,  who  lay  crying  in  bed 
over  Lieutenant  Osborne  ;  a  silly,  commonplace  schoolgirl, 
incapable  of  arousing  one  little  bit  of  sympathy.  Young 
Rawdon  Crawley  makes  a  striking  contrast. 

201 


The  Children  of  Books 


I  have  mentioned  Sophia  Western,  and  there  is  another 
girl  character  in  fiction  not  unworthy  to  take  a  place  be- 
side the  heroine  of  Fielding's  immortal  book.  How  much 
of  the  charm  of  "  Silas  Marner  "  is  due  to  the  sunshine  of 
Effie's  presence  !  Here  is  a  real  mischievous  child,  requiring 
to  be  petted  and  smacked  and  loved,  neither  too  good  nor 
too  bad,  but  just  an  ordinary  human  baby,  such  a  one  as 
inspired  Whittier's  lines  : — 

"  A  dreary  place  would  be  this-  earth 
Were  there  no  little  people  in  it ; 
The  song  of  life  would  lose  its  mirth 
Were  there  no  children  to  begin  it." 

Whenever  one  thinks  of  Effie,  there  is  recalled  that  inimi- 
table description  of  the  first  and  last  punishment  that  the 
old  weaver  ever  inflicted  on  his  adopted  daughter.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  natural  incidents  in  any  book : — 

"  '  Naughty,  naughty  Effie,'  he  suddenly  began,  holding  her  on 
his  knee,  and  pointing  to  her  muddy  feet  and  clothes — '  naughty  to 
cut  with  the  scissors  and  run  away.  Effie  must  go  into  the  coal- 
hole for  being  naughty.  Daddy  must  put  her  in  the  coal-hole.' 

"  For  a  moment  there  was  silence,  but  then  came  a  little  cry, 
'  Opy,  opy  !  '  and  Silas  let  her  out  again,  saying  :  '  Now,  Effie 
'ull  never  be  naughty  again,  else  she  must  go  in  the  coal-hole — a 
black,  naughty  place.' 

"  In  half-an-hour  she  was  clean  again,  and  Silas  having  turned 
his  back  to  see  what  he  could  do  with  the  linen  band,  threw  it  down 
again  with  the  reflection  that  Effie  would  be  good  without  fastening 
for  the  rest  of  the  morning.  He  turned  round  again,  and  was 
going  to  place  her  in  her  little  chair  near  the  loom  when  she  peeped 
out  at  him  with  black  face  and  hands  again,  and  said  :  '  Effie  in  de 
toal-hole  !  '  " 

Tom  Tulliver  and  Fred  Vincy  are  both  drawn  by  the 
same  master  hand,  and  George  Eliot,  almost  alone  among 

202 


The  Children  of  Books 


women  novelists,  showed  that  she  understood  little  boys 
as  well  as  little  girls.  Then  I  might  write  also  of  those 
incomparable  boys,  Tom  Jones  and  Roderick  Random, 
both  rollicking,  roystering  types,  who  belong  to  an  age 
of  their  own.  Roderick  Random,  however,  has  his  dis- 
ciples among  the  "  scallywags  "  of  the  twentieth  century. 
"  I  was  often,"  he  writes,  "  inhumanely  scourged  for  crimes 
I  did  not  commit ;  because,  having  the  character  of  a 
vagabond  in  the  village,  every  piece  of  mischief  whose 
author  lay  unknown  was  charged  upon  me." 


203 


XXII 
SOME   FAMOUS   PLAGIARISMS 


"  The  author  who  imitates  his  predecessors  only  by  furnishing 
himself  with  thoughts  and  elegancies  out  of  the  same  general  maga- 
zine of  literature,  can  with  little  more  propriety  be  reproached  as  a 
plagiary  than  the  architect  can  be  censured  as  a  mean  copier  of 
Angelo  or  Wren  because  he  digs  his  marble  from  the  same  quarry, 
squares  his  stones  by  the  same  art,  and  unites  them  in  columns  of 
the  same  orders." 

Dr.  Johnson 


XXII 

Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


AMONG    the   most    notorious    plagiarists    in    the 
world,  we    must    place   some  of    the   first  of    our 
poets.      Generally    speaking,    where    the    greatest 
similarities  of  expression  appear,  the  themes  are  as  old  as 
the  hills,  and  great  minds  have  agreed  to  clothe  a  common 
idea  in  the  same  dress. 

There  occurs  to  the  mind  at  once  a  striking  instance  of 
two  distinguished  men  lighting  on  the  same  image  and 
phrases.  Everybody  knows  the  well-known  lines  in 
Fitzgerald's  version  of  Omar  Khayydm  : — 

"The  moving  Finger  writes,  and  having  writ, 
Moves  on,  nor  all  your  Piety  nor  Wit 
Can  lure  it  back  to  cancel  half  a  line, 
Nor  all  your  tears  wash  out  a  word  of  it." 

Longfellow,  who  never  saw  the  Rub£iy£t  (for  Fitz- 
gerald's translation  has  only  become  popular  within  the 
last  thirty  years),  has  the  following  lines  in  one  of  his  fugi- 
tive pieces : — 

"  Whatever  hath  been  written  shall  remain, 
Nor  be  erased,  nor  written  o'er  again  ; 
The  unwritten  only  still  belongs  to  thee — 
Take  heed,  and  ponder  well  what  that  shall  be." 
207 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


Shakespeare  stole  with  both  hands,  but  to  vary  the 
epitaph  which  Johnson  passed  on  Goldsmith,  it  might  be 
written  that  "  he  stole  nothing  which  he  did  not  adorn." 
Many  poets  and  writers  have  since  his  day  been  largely 
indebted  to  Shakespeare.  To  give  only  one  example 
which  comes  to  the  lips — Jack  FalstafFs  description  of 
Justice  Shallow : — 

"  I  do  remember  this  same  Justice  at  Clement's  Inn,  like  a  man 
made  after  supper  of  a  cheese  paring ;  he  was,  for  all  the  world, 
like  a  forked  radish  with  a  head  fantastically  carved  upon  it  with  a 
knife." 

Who  does  not  recall  at  once  Carlyle's  phrase  : — 
"  A  forked  radish,  with  head  fantastically  carved." 

written  down,  by  the  way,  without  inverted  commas  ? 

Some  writers — Charles  Lamb  is  a  well-known  example — 
become  so  steeped  in  the  literature  of  one  period  that  their 
work  not  only  acquires  the  flavour  of  that  period,  but  they 
adopt  whole  phrases  and  images  unconsciously  into  their 
vocabulary.  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas,  in  his  introduction  to  Lamb, 
has  given  an  entertaining  account  of  his  efforts  to  disen- 
tangle what  is  really  Lamb's  own  work  from  what  he 
incorporated  from  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth-century 
dramatists.  Goldsmith  was  a  ready  and  most  ingenious 
adapter  of  other  men's  thoughts,  yet  in  every  case  he 
made  excellent  use  of  his  material.  There  is  the  well- 
known  instance  concerning  the  lines  from  "  The  Hermit  " 
which  are  quoted  everywhere : — 

"  Man  wants  but  little  here  below  ; 

Nor  wants  that  little  long." 

208 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


It  was  Young  who  wrote  : — 

"  Man  wants  but  little  nor  that  little  long." 

Pope's  verse  abounds  in  phrases  which  he  took  from 
other  poets,  and  by  a  felicitous  touch  rendered  unforgettable. 
The  lines  often  quoted,  and  more  often  than  not  quoted 
wrongly,  may  be  cited  as  a  case  in  point : — 

"  Form'd  by  thy  converse  happily  to  steer 
From  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe." 

Dryden  has  it  as  follows  : — 

"  Happy  who  in  his  verse  can  gently  steer 
From  grave  to  light,  from  pleasant  to  severe." 

And  Boileau  had  his  version  : — 

"  Heureux  qui,  dans  ses  vers,  sait  d'une  voix  legere 
Passer  du  grave  au  doux,  du  plaisant  au  severe." 

This  can  be  likened  only  to  the  case  of  one  of  Johnson's 
papers  in  "  The  Rambler  "  which  was  pilfered  by  a  French 
author,  and  afterwards  translated  from  the  French  into 
English  again. 

An  author  will  sometimes  reproduce  in  many  varied  forms 
a  type  of  character  which  has  been  suggested  to  him  by 
the  writings  of  another,  and  though  the  treatment  in  such 
case  may  vary  according  to  the  temperament  and  style 
of  the  writer,  fundamentally  the  points  of  difference  are 
small.  The  writings  of  Chateaubriand  and  Byron  furnish 
a  parallel  of  the  kind.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Rene  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  long  line  of  what  Macaulay  described 
as  "  mysterious,  unhappy,  Lara-like  Peers  " — the  Childe 
p  209 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


Harolds,  Conrads,  Laras,  Manfreds,  etc.,  and  the  author 
of  the  "  Genie  du  Christianisme  "  was  piqued  that  the 
English  lord  should  have  forgotten  to  make  any  substantial 
acknowledgment.  "  Was  I  then,"  he  asks  in  his  "  Me- 
moirs," "  one  of  those  fathers  whom  men  deny  when  they 
have  attained  to  power  ?  Can  Lord  Byron  have  been  com- 
pletely ignorant  of  me  when  he  quotes  almost  all  the  French 
authors  who  are  his  contemporaries  ?  Did  he  never  hear 
speak  of  me,  when  the  English  papers,  like  the  French 
papers,  have  resounded  a  score  of  times  in  his  hearing  with 
controversies  on  my  works,  when  the  *  New  Times  '  drew 
a  parallel  between  the  author  of  the  '  Genie  du  Christian- 
isme '  and  the  author  of  *  Childe  Harold '  ?  "  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Byron  did  mention  Chateaubriand,  although  in  a 
work  which  the  latter  probably  never  saw.  The  following 
occurs  in  Stanza  XVI  of  "  Age  of  Bronze  "  : — 

"There  Metternich,  power's  foremost  parasite, 
Cajoles;    there  Wellington  forgets  to  fight; 
There  Chateaubriand  forms  new  books  of  martyrs ; 
And  subtle  Greeks  intrigue  for  stupid  Tartars." 

There  is  the  notorious  case  of  Robert  Montgomery,  the 
poet,  whose  dealings  with  the  work  of  others  drew  from 
Macaulay  one  of  the  most  scathing  reviews  of  modern 
times.  Shakespeare  has  said  that — 

"  Every  true  man's  apparel  fits  your  thief." 

"  It  is  by  no  means  the  case,"  says  the  author  of  the 
essay  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review,"  "  that  every  true  poet's 
similitude  fits  your  plagiarist."  Perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able coincidence,  to  apply  a  polite  term,  between  the  work 

210 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


of  Montgomery  and  a  brother  poet  occurs  in  the  poem  on 
the  Omnipresence  of  the  Deity.     Lord  Byron  wrote  : — 

"  Time  writes  no  wrinkle  on  thine  azure  brow  ;  " 
and  Montgomery's  version  is  as  follows  : — 

"  And  thou  vast  ocean,  on  whose  awful  face 
Time's  iron  feet  can  print  no  ruin- trace." 

Macaulay's  satire  was  let  loose  on  the  unhappy  Mont- 
gomery over  the  mutilation  of  those  lines  from  Scott's 
"  Lord  of  the  Isles  "  :— 

"The  dew  that  on  the  violet  lies, 
Mocks  the  dark  lustre  of  thine  eyes." 

Montgomery  has  the  following  : — 

"  And  the  bright  dew-bead  on  the  bramble  lies 
Like  liquid  rapture  upon  beauty's  eyes." 

The  paragraph  in  which  Macaulay  gibbets  the  plagiarists 
is  worth  reproducing,  because  it  embodies  a  very  wholesome 
moral  for  the  benefit  of  the  clumsy  adapter : — 

"  Dew  on  a  bramble  is  no  more  like  a  woman's  eyes  than  the 
dew  anywhere  else.  There  is  a  very  pretty  Eastern  tale,  of  which 
the  fate  of  plagiarists  often  reminds  us.  The  slave  of  a  magician 
saw  his  master  wave  his  wand,  and  heard  him  give  orders  to  the 
spirits  who  arose  at  the  summons.  The  slave  stole  the  wand,  and 
waved  it  himself  in  the  air ;  but  he  had  not  observed  that  his  master 
used  the  left  hand  for  that  purpose.  The  spirits  thus  irregularly 
summoned  tore  the  thief  to  pieces  instead  of  obeying  his  orders. 
There  are  very  few  who  can  safely  venture  to  conjure  with  the  rod 
of  Sir  Walter  ;  and  Mr.  Robert  Montgomery  is  not  one  of  them." 

Macaulay  himself  was  not  above  appropriating  a  good 
image  when  he  had  the  chance.  His  famous  New  Zealander, 

211 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


in  the  essay  on  Ranke's  "  History  of  the  Popes,"  was  taken 
from  Voleny's  "  Ruins,"  and  the  same  idea  occurs  in  a 
letter  of  Horace  Walpole's. 

A  quite  modern  example  may  also  be  given.  How  many 
readers  familiar  with  the  philosophy  of  William  Ernest 
Henley  : — 

"  I  am  the  captain  of  my  Soul, 
I  am  the  Master  of  my  Fate." 

remember  that  Tennyson  wrote  in  "Idylls  of  the  King"  ? — 

"  Smile  and  we  smile,  the  lords  of  many  lands. 
Frown  and  we  smile,  the  lords  of  our  own  hands ; 
For  Man  is  Man  and  Master  of  his  Fate." 

But  who  would  be  so  bold  as  to  say  that  both  Tennyson 
and  Henley  were  not  in  the  first  place  indebted  to  Shake- 
speare, that  repository  of  thoughts  and  ideas  for  every 
situation  and  mood  in  life  ?  Cassius,  addressing  Brutus, 
says  : — 

"Men  at  some  time  are  master  of  their  Fates. 
The  fault,  dear  Brutus,  is  not  in  our  stars, 
But  in  ourselves,  that  we  are  underlings." 

Burns,  as  is  well-known,  read  "  Tristram  Shandy  "  ; 
it  was  one  of  the  few  good  books  in  his  father's  small 
library.  Did  he,  I  wonder,  receive  from  Sterne's  work 
the  inspiration  for  the  lines : — 

"The  rank  is  but  the  guinea's  stamp, 
The  man's  the  gow'd  for  a'  that." 

In  the  dedication  of  "  Tristram  Shandy  "  to  "  A  Great 
Man,"  Sterne  says  : — 

212 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


"  Honours  like  impressions  upon  coin,  may  give  an  ideal  and  local 
value  to  a  bit  of  base  metal,  but  Gold  and  Silver  will  pass  all  the 
world  over,  without  any  other  recommendation  than  their  own 
weight." 

It  was  La  Bruyere  who  declared  that  we  had  come  into 
the  world  too  late  to  produce  anything  new,  and  that 
description  and  sentiment  had  long  been  exhausted.  Horace 
complained  in  his  day  that  it  was  difficult  to  discover  an 
original  theme.  Dr.  Johnson,  whose  sayings  many  men 
have  plagiarised,  wrote  an  interesting  paper  in  "  The 
Rambler "  on  this  very  subject.  The  doctor  had  no 
sympathy  with  those  people  who  are  eternally  seeking  to 
discover  points  of  resemblance  between  the  works  of  differ- 
ent writers  in  order  to  establish  a  case  of  theft.  It  is  certain, 
he  says,  that  whoever  attempts  any  common  topic  will 
find  unexpected  coincidences  of  his  thoughts  with  those 
of  other  writers  ;  "  nor  can  the  nicest  judgment  always 
distinguish  accidental  similitude  from  artful  imitation." 

Johnson,  of  course,  would  have  differentiated  between, 
say,  Montgomery's  adaptations  of  Scott  and  Pope's  borrow- 
ings from  his  contemporaries.  For  he  adds  later  on,  in 
the  same  essay,  that  no  writer  ought  to  be  convicted  of 
imitation  "  except  there  is  a  concurrence  of  more  resemb- 
lance than  can  be  imagined  to  have  happened  by  chance." 
He  would  not  excuse  a  man  where  "  the  same  ideas  are 
conjoined  without  any  natural  series  or  necessary  co- 
herence, or  where  not  only  the  thought,  but  the  words, 
are  copied."  There  is  such  an  instance  in  Pope,  and  as 
the  lines  are  so  well  known,  it  may  be  given  : — 

"  This  modest  stone,  what  few  vain  marbles  can, 
May  truly  say — Here  lies  an  honest  man." 
213 


Some  Famous  Plagiarisms 


Crashaw  is  clearly  copied  here.     He  wrote : — 

"  This  plain  floor, 
Believe  me,  reader,  can  say  more 
Than  many  a  braver  marble  can — 
Here  lies  a  truly  honest  man." 

Instances  of  plagiarism  and  open  piracy  might  be 
multiplied  from  all  times  and  from  all  departments  of 
literature.  Everything  that  is  successful  is  certain  to  be 
imitated.  Defoe  wept  over  the  number  of  bogus  "  Robin- 
son Crusoes  "  that  sprang  up,  mushroom-like,  in  a  night, 
and  the  finicking  old  bookseller,  Richardson,  has  left  it 
on  record  that  "  The  publication  of  the  *  History  of 
Pamela'  gave  birth  to  no  less  than  16  Pieces,  as  Re- 
marks, Imitations,  Retailings  of  the  Story,  Pyracies, 
etc.,  etc." 


214 


XXIII 

THE   IMPORTANCE  OF   THE   RIGHT 
WORD 


"  Don't,  sir,  accustom  yourself  to  use  big  words  for  little  matters.'* 

Dr.  Johnson  to  Boswell. 


XXIII 


The  Importance  of  the  Right 
Word 


HALF  the  effectiveness  of  good  writing  and  good 
talk  lies  in  the  happy  facility  for  getting  the 
right  word.  We  are  continually  in  the  mood  for 
catching  modish  innovations  on  established  forms  of 
speech  and  decrying  any  word  or  phrase  that  falls  below 
the  ever-changing  standard  of  polite  conversation.  Euphe- 
misms are  the  fashion  both  in  speaking  and  writing.  In- 
deed, if  it  were  not  for  an  occasional  slang  word  or  two  our 
everyday  vocabulary  would  soon  be  as  dull  and  spiritless 
as  an  early  Victorian  novel.  Yet  how  stimulating  is  the 
bold  and  expressive  speech  of  the  Elizabethans  !  In  those 
days  men's  talk  had  some  body  and  substance  in  it. 

Let  any  one  who  wishes  to  realise  to  what  an  extent  our 
tongue  has  been  emasculated  by  this  modern  affectation 
of  politeness  read  through  the  first  part  of  "  King  Henry 
IV,"  and  some  of  Jack  Falstaff's  speeches  in  the  second 
part.  It  will  be  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air  on  a  spring  morn- 
ing. There  is  one  passage  in  the  reply  of  the  grand  old 
Knight  to  the  Chief  Justice  that  serves  partly  to  illustrate 
the  point  I  am  trying  to  make.  "  If,"  exclaims  the  Knight, 
"  it  be  a  hot  day,  and  I  brandish  anything  but  my  bottle, 
I  would  I  might  never  spit  white  again  !  " 

217 


The  Importance  of  the  Right  Word 

President  Roosevelt  was  present  at  a  meeting  of  a  rail- 
road directorate  at  which  it  was  proposed  to  issue  a  notice 
requiring  passengers  not  to  "  expectorate "  on  the  floors 
of  the  cars.  "  Oh  !  Make  it  '  spit,'  "  said  Mr.  Roosevelt, 
"  that's  a  good  old  English  word  !  "  "  Expectorate  "  is 
a  great  word  with  the  ultra-fastidious.  It  has  had  a  good 
innings,  during  the  last  few  years,  and  the  medical  pro- 
fession especially  are  fond  of  it.  Falstaff,  of  course,  could 
never  have  "  expectorated  "  ;  but  Shakespeare  evidently 
did  not  think  the  word  "  spit  "  crude  or  unladylike  or  he 
would  never  have  allowed  Lucentio  to  use  it  in  the  presence 
of  Bianca.  The  lover's  remark  to  the  musician  was,  "  Oh 
fie !  The  treble  jars,  spit  in  the  hole,  man,  and  tune 
again  !  " 

A  passion  for  gentility  which  reduces  its  victim  to  the 
level  of  a  mere  automaton  whose  talk  is  prescribed  for  him, 
parrotwise,  usually  lies  at  the  root  of  this  distressing  love 
of  euphemism.  When  Bob  Acres  adopted  a  new  style 
of  swearing  in  "  The  Rivals  " — "  odds  triggers  and  flints," 
etc. — he  declared  to  Absolute  "  'tis  genteel,  isn't  it.  ... 
There  is  no  meaning  in  the  common  oaths,  and  nothing 
but  their  antiquity  makes  them  respectable.  .  .  .  The 
best  terms  will  grow  obsolete.  Damns  have  had  their 
day  ! " 

But  Acres  was  a  snob,  and  the  same  degree  of  enthusiasm 
which  he  exhibited  for  this  new  style  of  imprecation  would 
have  been  expended  on  a  current  fashion  in  periwigs  or  a 
novel  thing  in  ruffs.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  a  feeling 
for  the  right  word  which  is  above  everything  else  the 
chiefest  concern  in  the  equipment  of  a  literary  man's  mind. 

218 


The  Importance  of  the  Eight  Word 

To  most  people  one  word  is  just  as  good  as  another.  That 
is  why  most  people  can  never  hope  to  appreciate  good 
writing.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  altogether  untrue  to 
say  that  some  of  the  best  terms  and  phrases  become  over- 
worked and  require,  like  an  old  pipe,  to  be  put  away  for  a 
rest.  But  there  are  others  which,  used  in  the  right  con- 
junction and  environment,  have  no  substitutes.  They 
alone  must  be  used  to  express  certain  ideas  and  convey 
certain  images.  Shakespeare  has  a  sovereign  manner 
with  words  ;  but  occasionally  his  liking  for  a  long  procession 
of  adjectives  causes  him  to  slip  into  bathos,  to  sound  a 
false  jarring  note.  There  is  that  notable  phrase  in  "  Ham- 
let " — "  remorseless,  treacherous,  lecherous,  kindless  vil- 
lain." "  Kindless  "  coming  after  so  many  strong  adjectives 
sounds  weak  and  ineffective ;  it  affects  one  with  the  chill 
of  an  anti-climax. 

There  are  evidences  throughout  the  plays  that  Shake- 
speare was  ever  on  the  alert  to  maintain  these  nice  distinc- 
tions in  the  interchange  of  words,  and  that  he  had  an  eye 
for  their  right  values.  Doll  Tearsheet,  in  language  which 
with  all  our  desire  for  a  return  to  a  more  primordial  vocabu- 
lary we  cannot  approve,  declares  : — 

"  Hang  him,  rogue !  He  lives  upon  mouldy  stewed  prunes  and 
dried  cakes.  A  captain  !  these  villains  will  make  the  word '  captain  ' 
as  odious  as  the  word  '  occupy  ' ;  which  was  an  excellent  good  word 
before  it  was  ill-assorted  :  therefore  captains  had  need  look  to  it." 

Every  one  knows  of  many  words  that  have  lost  their 
original  virtue  by  misuse,  or  been  corrupted  by  bad  com- 
pany until  the  writer  of  taste  refuses  to  find  them  employ- 

219 


The  Importance  of  the  Right  Word 

ment  at  all.  Usually  they  are  driven  to  the  gates  of  the 
illiterate.  Many  words  and  phrases  fall  by  dint  of  their 
own  good  service ;  we  tire  of  them,  and  then  after  a  short, 
sharp  struggle  they  are  cast  adrift.  "  Humour "  is  a 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth-century  word  that  seems  to 
have  been  a  sort  of  King  Charles's  head  with  the  drama- 
tists ;  they  could  never  keep  it  out  of  their  plays.  It  fell 
away  from  grace,  and  now  stands  in  a  modern  sense  for 
something  very  different  indeed  from  caprice  or  behaviour. 
When  one  older  word  drops  out  of  favour,  there  are  always 
plenty  ready  to  step  into  its  place,  most  of  them  nowa- 
days French,  and  often  poor  substitutes  for  the  original. 
A  really  fine  full-blooded  word  will  swim  into  our  ken  now 
and  again.  I  recall  such  a  one  during  the  Boer  war — 
"  disgruntled " ;  a  word  then  revived,  and  still  in  use, 
which  is  quite  Shakespearean  in  its  expressiveness,  and 
fitted  exactly  to  pin  to  a  beaten  and  discomfited  party. 
The  great  European  war  has  yielded  a  word  that  it 
is  safe  to  say  will  cling  to  English  currency  for  many 
years — the  verb  "  to  strafe."  Of  such  words  one  may 
say  with  Bardolph  : — 

"  I  will  maintain  the  word  with  my  sword  to  be  a  soldier-like  word, 
and  a  word  of  exceeding  good  command,  by  heaven." 

Into  the  mouth  of  Falstaff  Shakespeare  put  a  great 
many  words  that,  like  the  language  of  Hudibras  and  Swift, 
can  hardly  escape  a  modern  censorship.  But  he  also 
supplied  his  much-beloved  Knight  with  patches  of  comic 
dialogue  that  for  force  and  picturesqueness  have  never 
been  equalled  in  the  tongue.  That  burst  of  indignation 

220 


The  Importance  of  the  Eight  Word 

in  "  The  Wives  "  after  the  buck-basket  incident  is  inimit- 
able :— 

"  The  rogues  slighted  me  into  the  river  with  as  little  remorse  as 
they  would  have  drowned  a  bitch's  blind  puppies,  fifteen  i'  the 
litter  ;  and  you  may  know  by  my  size,  that  I  have  a  kind  of  alacrity 
in  sinking  ;  if  the  bottom  were  as  deep  as  hell,  I  should  down." 

The  use  of  the  phrase  "  A  kind  of  alacrity  "  is  a  stroke 
of  Shakespearean  genius,  and  the  whole  scene  belongs 
emphatically  to  the  region  described  by  Dr.  Johnson  as 
peculiarly  belonging  to  the  poet,  where  "  there  is  a  con- 
versation above  grossness  and  below  refinement,  where 
propriety  resides." 

This,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is  the  middle  circle  where  very 
often  the  right  word  will  be  found,  and  most  great  writers 
and  poets  have  not  hesitated  to  draw  liberally  upon  it. 
Slang — or  words  which  by  common  usage  are  regarded 
as  slang  words — are  not  always  to  be  despised  by  the 
picturesque  writer,  though  only  a  man  of  taste  and  judg- 
ment should  be  allowed  to  deal  in  them.  It  is  a  curious 
fact,  and  will  interest  those  people  who  like  to  inquire  into 
the  derivation  of  words,  that  many  effective  phrases  em- 
ployed by  Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethans  are  now  in 
current  use  as  slang.  Some  of  these  phrases  deserve  a 
better  fate  than  to  be  cast  out  of  the  circles  of  polite 
conversation,  for  they  are  incontestably  of  legitimate  use ; 
they  best  describe  a  certain  thought  or  idea.  The  great 
and  increasing  army  of  borrowers  have  long  been  known 
to  the  world  of  fashion  and  to  the  street  as  "  touchers," 
and  Shakespeare  sanctioned  the  employment  of  the  phrase 
in  this  connection.  In  "  Timon  "  a  servant,  after  vainly 

221 


The  Importance  of  the  Right  Word 

trying  to  raise  the  wind  by  asking  loans  from  Timon's 
friends,  reports  : — 

"  My  Lord, 

They  have  all  been  touched  and  found  base  metal ; 

For  they  have  all  denied." 

What  other  word  would  embody  so  effectively  the  form 
of  solicitation  here  suggested — not  the  ordinary  kind  of 
solicitation,  but  a  crafty  and  cunning  and  diplomatic  form 
of  appeal.  You  do  not,  of  course,  touch  a  friend  who  lends 
you  money  freely,  and  whom  you  intend  to  repay.  The 
man  who  "  touches  "  is  a  subtle,  designing  creature  with 
all  his  wits  about  him.  Shakespeare  has  other  expressive 
words  that  may  be  found  in  any  English  slang  dictionary, 
whither  they  might  on  occasion  be  rescued.  Falstaff 
uses  by  far  the  most  of  them,  and  one  I  recall  in  "  The 
Merry  Wives  "  that  is  not  unknown  on  racecourses.  It  is 
to  "  hedge,"  and  it  occurs  in  a  dialogue  with  Pistol,  who  to 
the  disgust  of  the  Knight  discovers  that  he  has  honourable 
and  conscientious  motives  against  the  delivery  of  one  of 
FalstafFs  letters.  Falstaff  is  indignant : — 

"  I,  I,  I,  myself  sometimes,  leaving  the  fear  of  Heaven  on  the  left 
hand,  and  hiding  mine  honour  in  my  necessity,  am  fain  to  shuffle, 
to  hedge,  and  to  lurch  ;  and  yet,  you  rogue,  will  esconce  your  rags, 
your  cat-a-mountain  looks,  your  red-lattice  phrases,  and  your  bold- 
beating  oaths  under  the  shelter  of  your  honour  1  " 

The  right  word,  let  it  be  said,  finally,  is  always  the  sim- 
plest, the  least  ostentatious,  the  least  pretentious. 


222 


XXIV 
THE   SOULS    OF   HOUSES 


"  We  can  die  out  of  many  houses,  but  the  house  itself  can  die  but 
once,  and  so  real  is  the  life  of  a  house  to  one  who  has  dwelt  in  it — 
more  especially  the  life  of  a  house  which  held  him  in  dreamy  infancy  ; 
in  restless  boyhood  ;  in  passionate  youth — so  real,  I  say,  is  its  life 
that  it  seems  as  if  something  like  a  soul  of  it  must  outlast  its  perishing 
frame." 

Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 


"  While  yet  a  boy  I  sought  for  ghosts,  and  sped 
Thro'  many  a  listening  chamber,  cave  and  ruin, 
And  starlight  wood,  with  fearful  steps  pursuing 
Hopes  of  high  talk  with  the  departed  dead." 

Shelley. 


XXIV 

The  Souls  of  Houses 


ABOUT  midway  along  the  pleasant  winding  lane 
which  links  a  Yorkshire  village  to  one  of  the 
busiest  highways  in  the  county  is  a  dismal  two- 
storeyed  cottage,  with  a  long,  straggling  garden  in  front. 
The  cottage  is  unoccupied,  and  this  bleak  winter  afternoon 
it  has  about  it  that  overpowering  sense  of  desolation  and 
pathos  which  seems  to  belong  to  isolated  country  spots 
that  show  some  signs  of  human  activity  only  newly  with- 
drawn. The  spectacle  of  a  house  to  let  in  a  town  or  city 
scarcely  touches  the  imagination  at  all.  If  it  is  set  in  a 
row  of  houses  of  similiar  pattern  then  it  absorbs  warmth 
and  vitality  from  its  surroundings  ;  it  shares  in  the  bustle 
and  turmoil  of  the  "  next  door,"  and  the  full  tide  of  the 
day's  traffic  rolls  up  to  its  dingy  steps.  It  has  its  place 
in  the  commonwealth  of  the  street.  It  is  no  more  forlorn 
in  winter  than  in  summer  because  the  influences  of  nature, 
of  the  wind  and  the  sun  are  hardly  perceptible  in  its  environ- 
ment. Perhaps  it  is  a  trifle  melancholy  looking  on  a 
dripping  November  afternoon,  in  that  twilight  moment 
before  the  pale  yellow  lights  of  the  lamps  stream  on  to  the 
splashy  gutters,  and  the  first  glimpse  of  its  neighbours' 
fires  are  visible  through  the  gloom.  Then  the  town  house 
is  always  kept  human  by  the  play  of  the  children  round 
Q  225 


The  Souls  of  Houses 


about  its  walls.  The  little  dwellers  in  pent-up  streets, 
whose  movements  are  strictly  prescribed  by  anxious 
mothers,  sprawl  noisily  over  the  doorsteps  and  clamber  on 
to  the  window-sills  of  the  empty  house.  Here  is  sanctuary 
from  the  scolding  tongue  of  the  Olympians ;  and  if  by 
chance  any  door  be  left  open,  what  a  world  of  exploration 
spreads  itself  out  before  the  tiny  feet  ! 

This  faint  note  of  melancholy  and  regret  which  is  so 
often  induced  by  the  sight  of  an  empty  human  habitation 
is,  of  course,  more  often  than  not  connected  with  the  age 
and  situation  of  the  place.  It  might  be  difficult,  perhaps, 
for  the  imagination  to  weave  romantic  dreams  about  a 
half-crown  jerry-built  tenement  down  a  back  street.  But 
a  house,  however  plebeian  in  its  origin,  however  unpoetic 
its  surroundings,  is  not  destitute  of  the  romantic  quality, 
provided  some  one  has  lived  there.  The  sight  of  a  room 
in  which  we  have  spent  any  length  of  time  will  bring  a 
flood  of  tender  memories  and  faint  regrets.  On  certain 
spots  are  accretions  of  ourselves — corners  that  hold  the 
record  of  misery  and  pain.  To  what  extent  these  influences 
are  felt  is  wholly  a  matter  of  temperament  and  imagination. 
The  man  with  a  lively  and  fertile  fancy  derives  the  greatest 
pleasure  from  the  contemplation  of  old  scenes ;  but  he  is 
also  made  to  feel  their  sadness  in  a  more  poignant  degree. 

I  have  been  alluding,  of  course,  to  houses  in  which  the 
observer  has  lived  himself,  or  which  possess  for  him  some 
deep  and  tender  associations.  When  it  comes  to  the 
detached  and  impersonal  point  of  view,  the  presence  of 
romance  in  a  ruined  or  empty  house  is  determined  by  the 
situation  of  the  place,  or  by  a  sense  of  personality  that 

226 


The  Souls  of  Houses 


seems  to  hover  about  the  building.  The  old  great  house, 
Blakesmoor,  in  H — shire,  which  Charles  Lamb  found,  much 
to  his  grief,  in  ruins,  diffused  an  enduring  magic  that 
coloured  many  of  his  dreams.  His  wanderings  through 
its  stately  rooms  when  a  boy  were  responsible  for  that 
quaint  and  always  delightful  dissertation  on  gentility  : — 

"  To  have  a  feeling  of  gentility  it  is  not  necessary  to  have  been  born 
gentle.  The  pride  of  ancestry  may  be  had  on  cheaper  terms  than 
to  be  obliged  to  an  importunate  race  of  ancestors  ;  and  the  coatless 
antiquary  in  his  unemblazoned  cell,  revolving  the  long  line  of  Mow- 
bray  or  De  Clifford's  pedigrees,  at  the  sounding  names  may  warm 
himself  into  as  gay  a  vanity  as  those  who  do  inherit  them." 

Some  parts  of  the  North  are  rich  in  great  and  ruined  old 
manor  houses  of  the  Elizabethan  type — houses  that  stand 
in  the  loveliest  surroundings,  and  have  each  what  I  am 
daring  enough  to  call  a  soul  and  individuality.  One  that 
I  particularly  remember  is  now  tumbling  into  ruins,  and 
part  of  it  serves  as  a  cowshed.  By  the  simple  folk  in  the 
neighbourhood  it  is  regarded  with  deep-rooted  dislike,  not 
unmixed  with  awe  ;  for  there  are  strange  stories  of  rappings 
and  clanking  chains,  and  mysterious  apparitions.  This 
reputation,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  not  wholly  undeserved. 
Some  ancient  houses  have  the  aspect  of  a  large  and  healthy 
benevolence ;  they  suggest  the  flowing  wassail,  and  a 
boundless  hospitality  of  far-off  days.  They  are  robustious 
and  jolly  ;  an  air  of  solid  comfort  dwells  about  their  richly 
timbered  roofs.  Very  different  is  the  impression  left  on 
the  mind  by  a  walk  through  the  house  I  have  in  mind. 
One  is  chilled  and  disturbed  in  some  strange  and  unex- 
plained way  by  the  atmosphere  of  the  place.  A  sinister 

227 


The  Souls  of  Houses 


air  pervades  everything,  and  though  it  be  a  warm  summer's 
day,  a  fit  of  shivering  creeps  over  one. 

George  Macdonald,  whose  poems  on  haunted  houses 
have  an  unusually  realistic  note,  must  have  encountered 
such  a  building  when  he  wrote  : — 

"Mark  how  it  looks!    It  must  have  a  soul, 
It  looks  as  though  it  cannot  stir  ; 
See  the  ribs  of  it  how  they  stare  ! 
Its  blind  eyes  yet  have  a  seeing  air ; 
It  knows  it  has  a  soul !  " 

This  suggestion  of  the  working  of  some  maleficent  in- 
fluence, which  has,  as  it  were,  by  a  process  of  evil  alchemy 
impregnated  the  very  stones  of  the  house  with  the  odour 
of  decay  and  death,  makes  the  reading  of  "  The  House  with 
the  Seven  Gables  "  a  fascinating  and  terrifying  ordeal. 
In  the  hands  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  the  musty  and  dry- 
rotted  old  home  of  the  Pyncheon  ancestry  is  something 
more  than  the  mise  en  scene  of  the  story  ;  it  is  a  personality 
that  enters  into  the  texture  of  the  living  characters,  and 
becomes  the  mainspring  of  their  acts.  It  is  an  ogre  that 
withers  up  the  happiness  of  every  one  within  those  ancient 
walls.  The  young  daguerreotypist,  full  of  hope  and 
vitality,  feels  this  enervating  influence,  and  makes  wild 
and  extravagant  protests  against  the  craze  for  hereditary 
houses.  "  Morbid  influences,"  he  says,  "  in  a  thousand- 
fold variety  gather  about  hearths,  and  pollute  the  life  of 
households.  There  is  no  such  inhuman  atmosphere  as 
that  of  an  old  home  rendered  poisonous  by  one's  defunct 
forefathers  and  relatives." 

I  recall  another  house  with  a  strange  and  mysterious 

228 


The  Souls  of  Houses 


past.  It  lies  on  the  fringe  of  a  bustling  Northern  city, 
and  within  recent  years  clusters  of  prosperous  villas  have 
gathered  about  its  feet.  It  was  built  at  no  later  date  than 
the  beginning  of  last  century,  but  for  fifty  years  it  has 
only  been  occupied  at  short  and  infrequent  intervals.  No 
tenant  ever  stayed  more  than  a  few  months.  And  when 
the  matter  came  to  be  investigated  there  was  no  suggestion 
of  any  ghostly  or  supernatural  phenomena ;  but  the 
atmosphere  of  the  place  was  intensely  depressing,  as  if  all 
the  sadness  and  gloom  of  generations  had  crystallised  in 
its  walls.  The  jolly  and  robustious  guest  failed  to  exorcise 
this  spirit  of  gloom,  and  consequently  the  house  stands 
eternally  to  let,  and  the  mischievous  boys  of  the  place  not 
daring  to  venture  through  the  gates,  occasionally  send  a 
fusilade  of  stones  into  the  neglected  garden. 

In  the  course  of  time  houses  will  acquire  distinct  and 
clearly  marked  characteristics,  reflecting,  as  it  were,  the 
peculiarities  of  their  occupiers  ;  and  these  are  not  obliter- 
ated all  at  once.  There  are  houses  that  flaunt  themselves 
brazenly  before  the  world,  just  as  there  are  houses  of  a 
modest  and  retiring  nature.  It  is  not  merely  the  brick 
and  mortar  that  gives  a  distinctive  character  to  a  house ; 
the  architect  and  the  builder  merely  supply  the  shell. 
Some  women,  and  a  few  men,  possess  the  hidden  gift  which 
enables  them  to  impress  themselves  and  their  personality 
on  a  new  house  almost  immediately.  Others,  too,  by 
genius  for  practical  arrangement  and  a  trick  of  bringing 
out  the  hidden  capabilities  of  things,  contrive  to  impart 
a  glow  of  comfort  to  a  house  that  has  hitherto  been  bare 
and  uninviting. 

229 


The  Souls  of  Houses 


The  old  cottage  to  which  I  have  referred  is  a  striking 
memorial  of  the  old  man  who  occupied  it  for  forty  years. 
He  died  at  the  age  of  eighty  of  a  chill  caught  during  a  tramp 
home  on  a  wet,  cold  night.  He  was  by  profession  a  dancing 
master,  the  oldest  in  the  North,  whose  recollections  went 
back  to  the  stately  days  of  early  Victorian  ballrooms  ; 
and  twice  a  week  he  gave  his  lessons  to  a  circle  of  pupils 
in  the  city.  His  real  interests  in  later  years,  however, 
were  in  the  village.  He  had  a  strong  artistic  bent  with 
what,  without  exaggerating,  may  be  described  as  an 
amazing  versatility  ;  he  painted  dozens  of  water-colours, 
superintended  amateur  theatricals,  wrote  antiquarian 
articles  and  gave  lessons  on  the  violin.  In  none  of  these 
things  did  he  attain  to  any  perfection — all  his  productions 
were  crude  and  bizarre.  The  mark  of  his  dilettantism  is 
left  on  the  ruined  garden.  It  is  laid  out  in  eccentric  walks 
now  deeply  overgrown  with  weeds.  Here  and  there  is  a 
worn  sun-dial,  and  a  sign  displaying  a  half-obliterated  ship 
in  full  sail  strikes  the  observer  at  once.  A  couple  of  summer 
houses,  now  damp  and  decaying,  complete  a  picture  of 
ruined  Bohemianism  that  has  about  it  for  those  who  knew 
the  old  man,  a  deep  note  of  pathos.  To  walk  through  the 
house  and  grounds  is  to  feel  that  the  old  dancing  master 
has  bequeathed  something  of  his  spirit  to  the  stones  of  the 
place. 


230 


1    .  .  .  What  might  this  be  ?     A  thousand  fantasies 
Begin  to  throng  into  my  memory, 
Of  calling  shapes,  and  beck'ning  shadows  dire." 

Milton. 


XXV 

At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 


THE  spirit  of  romance  can  never  die  down  in  the 
man  who  has  once  strapped  his  knapsack  on  his 
back  and  gone  gaily  afoot  through  the  world. 
In  quiet  moments,  when  the  traffic  of  the  city  is  left  far 
behind,  he  will  dream  once  more  of  the  magic  of  the  long, 
white  road,  and  the  wonder  that  lies  beyond.  It  is  only 
your  true  vagabond  who  can  keep  abreast  of  that  illustrious 
pair,  Don  Quixote  and  Gil  Bias,  without  occasionally 
skipping  a  barren  tract  of  country,  and  he  it  is  who,  bustling 
past  the  crowd,  takes  that  picturesque  scoundrel  Casanova 
to  his  arms,  and  welcomes  him  as  a  friend  and  a  brother. 
No  one  should  set  out  to  walk  seriously  who  has  not  first 
journeyed  hand  in  hand  with  the  giants  of  the  road.  They 
make  him  free  of  his  craft.  They  give  colour  and  imagina- 
tion to  his  pilgrimage,  and  awaken  in  him  that  delightful 
mood  of  expectation  which  constitutes  half  the  charm  of 
the  business.  He  will  then  be  able  to  see,  as  Hazlitt  did, 
the  picture  of  Mambrino's  immortal  helmet  glittering  in 
the  sun. 

All  my  adventures  on  foot  have  become  suddenly  strange 
and  romantic  in  the  light  of  the  afterglow  which  is  inherited 
from  the  company  of  these  great  ones. 

233 


At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 

I  was  thinking  the  other  day  of  a  hot  and  dusty  July 
afternoon  in  the  heart  of  Normandy  the  summer  before 
the  war ;  and,  if  ever  my  wandering  fortunes  should  carry 
me  into  that  part  of  the  world  again,  I  must  immediately 
pay  my  devoirs  at  the  old  farmstead  of  St.  Lac.  It  rests 
in  picturesque  solitude  in  one  of  those  delicious  valleys 
that  bring  refreshment  and  gladness  to  the  soul  of  the  tired 
traveller. 

The  shadows  were  just  beginning  to  creep  over  the  golden 
fields  of  wheat  when  we  reached  a  long  white  wall  that 
bounded  one  side  of  the  house.  It  was  a  scene  to  cozen 
the  loiterer  ;  under  the  whiteness  of  the  wall  there  stretched 
a  fresh  carpet  of  greensward  which  had  escaped  the  rays 
of  the  burning  sun,  and  presented  a  halting-place  of  delight- 
ful coolness.  Then  there  hung  over  the  valley,  where  not 
a  single  human  being  was  to  be  seen,  that  indescribable 
sense  of  quiet  and  restfulness  which  comes  to  these  far- 
away spots  at  the  close  of  a  summer's  day. 

We  threw  ourselves  down  near  the  wall,  my  friend  and  I. 
What  a  relief  to  be  rid  of  the  intolerable  weight  of  the  knap- 
sack, and  get  the  glare  of  the  sun  out  of  our  eyes  !  How 
long  we  lay  there  I  cannot  say.  I  must  have  been  dozing 
for  some  minutes  when  my  eyes  wandered  to  the  face  of 
the  ancient  white-washed  wall  before  me.  I  made  out 
certain  irregularly  drawn  lines  in  black  chalk,  and,  piecing 
them  together,  it  seemed  to  me  that  they  made  up  a  picture 
of  some  sort.  I  rubbed  my  eyes.  I  was  surely  awake  ! 
Then  I  thought  of  that  pair  of  students  in  "  Gil  Bias  "  who 
went  together  from  Pennafiel  to  Salamanca.  Being  tired  and 
thirsty,  they  sat  down  by  a  spring  they  met  with  on  the 

234 


At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 

road.  While  they  were  resting  there  they  perceived  on  a 
stone  some  letters  that  were  partly  worn  away  by  time  and 
the  weather.  They  threw  water  on  the  stone,  and  read, 
it  will  be  remembered,  "  Here  lies  the  soul  of  the  Licentiate 
Peter  Garcias."  One  of  the  students  laughed  at  the 
ridiculous  idea  of  a  soul  being  shut  up,  and  walked  away. 
His  fellow  traveller,  less  of  a  sceptic,  dug  round  the  stone 
with  a  knife,  and  unearthed  a  purse  of  a  hundred  ducats, 
and  a  card  which  bore  the  inscription,  "  Whosoever  thou 
art  that  hast  wit  enough  to  discover  the  meaning  of  the 
inscription  ;  inherit  my  money,  and  make  a  better  use  of 
it  than  I  have  done  !  " 

My  friend,  who  is  an  artist  of  the  pencil,  was  soon  in- 
terested, and  at  his  suggestion  I  crossed  to  the  other  side 
of  the  narrow  road,  and  at  a  distance  of  about  twenty  yards 
got  the  right  perspective. 

On  the  wall  was  drawn  a  life-size  bust  of  Napoleon,  per- 
fect in  execution,  and  evidently  the  work  of  an  accomplished 
draughtsman.  The  Little  Corporal  was  depicted  in  the 
tight-fitting  great  coat,  and  was  wearing  the  three-cornered 
hat  which  has  become  a  sacred  Napoleonic  tradition. 

"  Who  can  have  been  the  artist  ?  "  I  asked,  in  admiration 
of  the  picture. 

"  Clearly  a  man  who  knows  how  to  draw,"  said  my 
companion,  preparing  to  make  a  miniature  copy  in  his 
sketch-book.  "  Maybe  a  vagrant  Bohemian  holidaying  from 
the  Quartier  Latin  or  a  staunch  Bonapartist  who  yearned 
thus  to  leave  the  mark  of  his  God  by  the  wayside  !  " 

The  drawing  had  evidently  been  there  for  some  time. 
Some  of  the  lines  were  faded  slightly  by  the  rains,  and  in 

235 


At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 

one  or  two  places  bits  of  crumbling  stone,  blackened  by  the 
weather,  only  seemed  to  heighten  the  astonishing  accuracy 
of  the  likeness. 

"  It  must  have  taken  the  man  several  hours  to  draw 
that,"  said  my  companion.  "  I  wonder  if  the  people  who 
live  in  this  sleepy  little  house  are  aware  of  the  honour  that 
has  been  done  them  ?  " 

At  that  moment  the  sound  of  an  iron  gate  closing  sharply 
broke  the  stillness  of  the  afternoon.  We  both  turned  in 
the  direction  whence  the  noise  came,  and  for  a  moment 
only  we  saw  the  vision  of  a  beautiful  girl  dressed  wholly  in 
white  ;  she  was  hatless,  and  her  black  curly  hair  hung  over 
her  shoulders  in  rich  curls.  She  smiled  on  us  with  a  smile 
that  seemed  to  have  in  it  a  suggestion  of  sadness,  and  then 
disappeared  through  the  gate. 

It  was  at  that  moment  that  I  felt  a  terrible  sickness 
creeping  over  me.  The  walk  in  the  hot  sun  had  been  too 
much,  even  for  me,  seasoned  walker  that  I  was.  My  friend 
had  wisely  travelled  some  distance  by  train  and  picked  me 
up  at  luncheon  at  a  wayside  cafe  on  the  road  to  Avranches. 
I  had  protested  against  his  too  leisurely  habit  of  lingering 
by  the  road  over  a  pipe,  and  quoted  with  much  unction 
the  words  of  Christian  to  By-Ends :  "  If  you  will  go  with 
us  you  must  go  against  Wind  and  Tide,  the  which  I  perceive 
is  against  your  opinion." 

Now  I  was  to  pay  for  my  folly.  The  vision  of  the  girl 
had  barely  faded  away  before  I  seemed  to  perceive  a  blind- 
ing flash  of  light  which  leapt  down  the  long  white  road  to 
meet  me  ;  a  roar  as  of  the  sounding  of  tumultuous  seas 
broke  on  my  ears,  and  I  lapsed  into  unconsciousness. 

236 


At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 

When  I  opened  my  eyes,  I  was  lying  on  a  couch  in  the 
farmhouse.  I  heard  the  voice  of  my  friend,  which  seemed 
to  come  from  miles  away,  arranging  with  one  of  the  men 
to  drive  us  to  the  nearest  railway  station.  Then  I  fell  into 
a  state  of  semi-consciousness  again.  I  dreamt  the  most 
delectable  of  dreams.  Into  those  dreams  were  curiously 
wrought  all  the  events  of  the  last  few  hours.  The  lady  of 
my  vision,  now  more  ethereal  than  ever,  and  looking,  it 
seemed  to  me,  like  the  sad  pictures  of  Josephine  at  the 
saddest  moments  of  her  life,  was  engaged  before  a  huge 
white  canvas,  on  which  she  drew  the  magic  lineaments  of 
Napoleon.  Then  on  the  scene  there  came  another  woman, 
proud  and  disdainful,  and  she  pushed  the  artist  roughly 
out  of  the  way,  and  blotted  out  her  work.  How  my  sun- 
ridden  brain  must  have  tumbled  to  pieces  at  the  sights 
and  impressions  of  the  day  !  For  the  chalk  bust  became 
a  full-length  figure  of  Le  Petit  Caporal ;  it  stepped  out  of 
the  white  stone  frame,  and  took  the  fair  lady  in  its  arms, 
whilst  the  other  lady  looked  on  in  anger.  Then  I  thought 
of  Aucassin  and  Nicolette,  that  most  delightful  of  French 
songs : — 

"  Aucassin,  the  fair,  the  bright, 
The  amorous,  the  gentle  knight 
From  the  deep  wood  issuing  out 
Claspeth  arms  his  love  about." 

I  remember  little  of  the  journey  back  to  Rouen.  It  was 
merely  the  dim  background  to  an  ever-changing  panorama 
of  gorgeous  dreams  in  which,  in  some  shape  or  other,  and 
under  all  manner  of  varying  circumstances,  I  witnessed 
the  adventures  of  a  Napoleonic  knight,  and  his  brave  lady. 

237 


At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 

Sometimes  the  call  of  battle  came,  and  the  knight  parted 
with  his  love  in  true  mediaeval  style.  Always,  when  she 
was  sad,  I  saw  her  kneeling  at  the  shrine  of  the  white  wall, 
where  her  fingers  traced  lovingly  the  picture  of  the  great 
soldier. 

Two  or  three  days  after  my  recovery  from  delirium,  due 
to  a  slight  sunstroke,  we  were  at  dejeuner  in  the  hotel. 
A  motor-car  snorted  its  way  into  the  courtyard  and  a 
moment  later  My  Lady  of  The  Vision — the  one  who  had 
appeared  for  a  moment  at  the  gate  of  the  farmhouse — sat 
down  at  the  table.  My  companion  recognised  her  instantly, 
and  spoke  to  me.  She  was  dressed  wholly  in  white,  as  on 
the  day  we  first  saw  her,  and  there  was  in  her  face  that 
look  of  grave  sadness  which  had  haunted  me  in  my  dreams. 
I  resolved  on  a  bold  course. 

"  Give  me  that  sketch  of  yours,"  I  said  to  my  friend,  and 
he  tore  it  out  of  his  book.  I  passed  the  lady  the  menu 
with  the  sketch  at  the  back  of  it.  It  fell  loosely  on  to 
the  table,  and  she  picked  it  up.  When  she  saw  the  picture 
she  smiled  wistfully,  just  as  she  had  done  at  the  white  gate, 
and  passed  it  back  to  me  without  a  word. 

We  held  no  conversation.  She  left  again  in  the  motor- 
car an  hour  later.  Who  she  was  I  do  not  know,  and  per- 
haps she  could  throw  no  more  light  on  that  wayside  picture 
than  could  the  people  of  the  farm.  It  must  have  been 
done  before  they  settled  there,  they  told  my  friend.  And 
yet  I  do  not  care  to  disturb  the  romance  I  have  built  around 
that  chalk  drawing,  and  the  beautiful  lady  with  the  sad 
eyes  at  the  shrine  of  the  White  Wall.  It  might  mayhap 
turn  out  that  my  Dulcinea  was  a  frivolous  demoiselle,  who 

238 


At  the  Shrine  of  the  White  Wall 

had  passed  the  White  Wall  a  dozen  times  and  seen  nothing 
more  than  a  few  idle  chalk  marks. 

Like  Don  Quixote,  I  would  cherish  my  dreams.  "  On 
thy  arrival  what  was  the  queen  of  beauty  doing  ?  I 
suppose  thou  foundest  her  stringing  pearls,  or  embroidering 
some  device  with  threads  of  gold  for  this  hercaptive  knight." 
"  No  !  "  answered  Sancho.  "  I  found  her  winnowing  ten 
bushels  of  wheat  in  the  backyard." 


239 


XXVI 
SHAKESPEARE'S    EARLIEST    CRITICS 


"  To  the  opera,  and  there  saw  '  Romeo  and  Juliet,'  the  first  time 
it  was  ever  acted ;  but  it  is  a  play  in  itself  the  worst  that  ever  I 
heard."  "  To  the  King's  Theatre,  where  we  saw  '  Midsummer's 
Night's  Dream,'  which  I  had  never  seen  before,  nor  ever  will  again, 
for  it  is  the  most  insipid,  ridiculous  play  that  ever  I  saw  in  my  life." 
"  Went  to  the  King's  House,  and  there  saw  a  silly  play  and  an  old 
one,  '  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.'  "  "  To  the  King's  Playhouse, 
and  there  saw  '  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,'  which  did  not  please 
me  at  all  in  no  part  of  it."  "  To  the  King's  House,  and  here  saw 
the  so-much-cried-up  play  of  '  Henry  VIII.,'  which,  though  I 
went  with  resolution  to  like  it,  is  so  simple  a  thing,  made  up  of  a 
great  many  patches,  that  besides  the  shows  and  processions  in  it, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  world  good  or  well  done." 

"  Pepys'  Diary." 


XXVI 

Shakespeare's  Earliest  Critics 


TO  an  age  which  accepts  Shakespeare  as  an 
unassailable  Fact,  there  must  always  appear 
something  ridiculously  small  and  tinkering  in 
the  pedantic  sophistries  of  eighteenth  -  century  criticism. 
When  we  see  the  Rhymers,  the  Dennis's,  the  Popes,  and  a 
whole  host  of  lesser  critics,  armed  with  the  "  rules  "  of  the 
drama,  attempting  solemnly  to  measure  and  appraise  the 
irregular  genius  of  Shakespeare,  admitting  this  and  reject- 
ing that,  lopping  a  branch  here  and  engrafting  one  there, 
the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  is  to  say  with  Sheri- 
dan : — 

"  Such  puny  patronage  but  hurts  the  cause." 

But  one  must  not  forget  that  this  slavish  adhesion  to  the 
Aristotelian  rules  was  less  the  fault  of  the  critics  than  of 
the  age  itself.  All  the  poets  and  critics  of  the  eighteenth 
century  had  been  taught  to  respect  the  unities  of  time  and 
place,  to  insist  on  chronological  succession,  and  to  condemn 
those  writers  who  neglected  to  differentiate  strictly  between 
tragedy  and  comedy.  The  genius  of  Shakespeare  rose 
superior  to  all  the  rules,  but  the  critics  of  the  century, 
excepting  perhaps  Johnson  and  Capel,  lost  sight  of  that 
genius  in  their  concern  for  the  orthodoxy  of  the  drama. 

243 


Shakespeare's  Earliest  Critics 


There  is  a  well-grounded  belief  that  Shakespeare  has  re- 
ceived from  posterity  the  honour  and  recognition  which 
were  withheld  or  only  grudgingly  bestowed  by  his  con- 
temporaries and  the  critics  in  the  immediate  post-Shake- 
spearean period  ;  and  in  a  large  sense  this  is  strictly  true. 

Nothing  can  be  plainer  to  the  student  of  Shakespearean 
criticism  for  at  least  a  hundred  years  or  more  after  the 
poet's  death  than  the  utter  failure  of  the  critics  to  grasp 
the  universality  of  the  man's  genius  and  the  psychological 
significance  of  his  work.  Two  exceptions  might  be  named, 
Johnson  and  Maurice  Morgann — the  former  in  spite  of  his 
noble  panegyric  cannot,  however,  refrain  from  peddling 
criticism  ;  but  Morgann  ranks  himself  among  the  idolaters 
and  sees  far  into  the  future.  In  his  "  Essay  on  the 
Dramatic  Character  of  Sir  John  Falstaff,"  he  pictures 
an  occasion  when  "  a  fellow  like  Rhymer,  waking  from  his 
trance,  shall  lift  up  his  Constable's  staff,  and  charge  this 
great  magician,  this  daring  practiser  of  arts  inhibited  in 
the  name  of  Aristotle,  to  surrender ;  whilst  Aristotle  him- 
self, disowning  his  wretched  officer,  should  fall  prostrate 
at  his  feet,  and  acknowledge  his  supremacy."  This  was 
written  in  1717 ;  and  it  is  an  unaccountable  thing  that  the 
book  from  which  it  is  taken  should  be  unknown  to  the 
majority  of  Shakespearean  students.  Morgann  deserves 
our  gratitude  for  his  splendid  championship  of  Shakespeare, 
at  a  time  when  it  was  not  generally  recognised  that  if 
Webster  and  Heywood,  Jonson  and  Ford  and  Fletcher,  and 
all  the  rest  were  obliterated  at  a  stroke  the  English  stage 
would  still  be  filled  with  the  splendour  of  Shakespeare's 
genius.  I  like  him  because  he  seems  to  have  resented 

244 


Shakespeare's  Earliest  Critics 


strongly  the  irritating  attentions  of  the  commentators  and 
editors  and  critics,  and  because  he  gave  Voltaire  and  the 
school  that  followed  him  a  bit  of  his  mind.  Here  is  another 
extract : — 

"  When  the  hand  of  time  shall  have  brushed  off  his  present  editors 
and  commentators,  and  when  the  very  name  of  Voltaire,  and  even 
the  memory  of  the  language  in  which  he  has  written  shall  be  no 
more,  the  Apalachian  mountains,  the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  and  the 
plains  of  Scotia  shall  resound  with  the  accents  of  this  Barbarian.  In 
his  native  tongue  he  shall  roll  the  genuine  passions  of  Nature ;  nor 
shall  the  griefs  of  Lear  be  alleviated,  or  the  charms  and  wit  of 
Rosalind  be  abated  by  time." 

The  name  of  "  this  Barbarian  "  is  known  to  almost  every 
one  who  can  read  and  write,  whilst  the  authors  from  whom 
he  borrowed  and  the  critics  who  furnished  him  with  rules 
are  forgotten.  Perhaps  the  finest  phrase  of  all  phrases 
describing  the  immortality  of  Shakespeare  belongs  to  John- 
son. "  The  stream  of  time,"  he  said,  "  which  is  con- 
tinually washing  the  dissoluble  fabrics  of  other  poets, 
passes  without  injury  by  the  adamant  of  Shakespeare." 
That  sentence  could  only  have  been  penned  by  the  author 
of  the  famous  letter  to  Lord  Chesterfield. 

Eighteenth-century  criticism,  even  when,  as  in  the  case 
of  Johnson  and  Morgann,  it  was  above  concerning  itself 
with  the  pedantries  of  the  schools,  failed  to  judge  of  Shake- 
speare's work  from  a  purely  aesthetic  standpoint,  and 
apparently  never  realised  his  marvellous  gifts  of  characteri- 
sation. 

Johnson  was  most  rigidly  devoted  to  the  idea  that  the 
central  aim  in  any  work  of  the  imagination  should  be 
didactic.  He  admired  Richardson  very  much  and  inserted 

245 


Shakespeare's  Earliest  Critics 


a  laudatory  notice  of  "  Clarissa  "  at  the  foot  of  an  essay 
which  its  author  contributed  to  "  The  Rambler."  In  this 
same  publication  there  is  a  paper  dated  1750  written  to 
show  that  it  is  not  a  sufficient  vindication  of  a  character 
that  it  is  drawn  as  it  appears ;  for,  contends  the  author  of 
"  Rasselas  "— 

"  many  characters  ought  never  to  be  drawn  .  .  .  and  the  purpose 
of  these  writings  is  to  teach  mankind  the  means  of  avoiding  the 
snares  which  are  laid  by  Treachery  for  Innocence,  without  infusing 
any  wish  for  that  superiority  with  which  the  betrayer  flatters  his 
vanity ;  to  give  the  power  of  counteracting  fraud  without  the 
temptation  to  practise  it ;  to  initiate  youth  by  mock  encounters 
in  the  art  of  necessary  defence  and  to  increase  prudence  without 
impairing  virtue." 

Shakespeare's  fine  disregard  for  what  is  called  "  poetic 
justice,"  as  shown,  for  example,  in  the  deaths  of  Banquo 
and  Duncan,  and  Lady  Macduff  and  her  children,  Desde- 
mona,  Cordelia,  Kent,  and  King  Lear,  hardly  squares  with 
Johnson's  theory  that  the  wicked  should  perish  and  the 
innocent  be  spared.  The  fact  of  course  is  that  the  Shake- 
spearean Theatre  was  as  fond  of  blood  and  direful  tragedy 
as  it  was  of  high-flown  rhetoric,  and  the  poet,  by  killing 
off  nearly  every  one  in  "  Hamlet  "  and  writing  such  speeches 
as  abound  in  "  Coriolanus,"  exhibited  a  nimble  adapta- 
bility to  the  demands  of  his  patrons.  Dr.  Johnson  defended 
Tate's  version  of  "  Lear  "  in  which  the  King  and  Cordelia 
are  left  alive,  and  the  Fool  is  omitted  from  the  play. 
Such  a  line  as  this,  at  any  rate,  is  indefensible,  for  by 
common  consent  it  is  the  pathetic  fidelity  of  the  Fool  to 
Lear  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  rewarded  as 
it  is  by  the  loving  attachment  of  the  King,  that  imparts 

246 


Shakespeare's  Earliest  Critics 


to  this  woe-inspiring  tragedy  a  touch  of  relief  that  makes 
its  living  presentation  on  the  stage  nearly  tolerable. 

But  Johnson's  taste  in  literature,  high  as  it  is,  does  not 
make  him  a  safe  guide  where  Shakespeare  is  concerned. 
He  has  another  paper  in  "  The  Rambler  "  dealing  with  the 
improprieties  of  writing  and  the  disgust  excited  by  inappro- 
priate images,  and  there  we  find  him  sternly  pillorying 
Shakespeare.  The  commentators  of  the  time  were  often- 
times equally  impervious  to  the  beauty  of  Shakespeare's 
lines.  Keats,  who  had  such  an  exquisite  appreciation 
of  the  right  word,  got  hold  of  one  of  the  early  folios,  and 
observed  that  these  gentlemen  had  managed  to  "  twist 
many  beautiful  passages  into  common  -  places."  In 
"  Troilus  and  Cressida,"  for  example,  the  lines — 

"  I  have  (as  when  the  sunne  doth  light  a-scorne) 
Buried  this  sigh  in  wrinkle  of  a  smile," 

are  changed  by  the  substitution  of  the  word  "  storm  "  for 
"  a-scorne."  To  few  poets  have  the  beauties  of  Shake- 
speare's imagery  made  a  more  instant  appeal  than  to  Keats, 
and  it  was  his  pride  that  he  discovered  a  great  many.  One 
such  discovery  may  be  noted  : — 

"  Blunt  wedges  rive  hard  knots ;    the  seeded  Pride 
That  hath  to  this  maturity  blown  up 
In  rank  Achilles  must  or  now  be  cropt, 
Or  shedding  breed  a  Nursery  of  like  evil 
To  over-bulke  us  all." 

Keats  wrote  of  this  : — 

"  Blown  up.  One's  very  breath  while  leaning  over  these  pages 
is  held  for  fear  of  blowing  this  line  away — as  easily  as  the  gentlest 
breeze 

Robs  dandelions  of  their  fleecy  crowns." 
247 


Shakespeare's  Earliest  Critics 


It  is  an  unfailing  mark  of  Shakespeare's  genius  that  he 
always  gets  the  most  expressive  word,  or  the  word  that  fits 
best  the  thought  he  wishes  to  express,  and  all  Shake- 
spearean students  must,  as  Hazlitt  has  pointed  out,  have 
found  that  any  but  the  true  word  is  sure  to  sound  wrong. 

Any  review  of  the  eighteenth-century  criticism  of  Shake- 
speare must  lead  to  the  inevitable  conclusion  that  the  man 
was  not  then  appreciated  at  his  full  stature ;  whilst  at  the 
same  time  it  inspires  a  feeling  of  wonder  that  audiences 
who  demanded  so  much  bloodshed  and  crude  work  could 
be  found  to  enjoy  such  exquisite  passages  of  poetry. 
"  Mellifluous,"  "  sweet,"  and  "  gentle  "  were  some  of  the 
expressions  used  towards  his  plays.  How  inapplicable, 
for  example,  they  are  to  that  great  and  thrilling  scene  in 
the  third  act  of  "Macbeth,"  where  Macbeth  calls  to  his 
aid  in  impassioned  poetry  all  the  spirits  of  evil : — 

"  Come,  seeling  night, 
Scarf  up  the  tender  eye  of  pitiful  day  ; 
And  with  thy  bloody  and  invisible  hand 
Cancel  and  tear  to  pieces  that  great  bond 
Which  keeps  me  pale !   Light  thickens ;    and  the  crow 
Makes  wing  to  the  rooky  wood  : 
Good  things  of  day  begin  to  droop  and  drowse  ; 
Whiles  night's  black  agents  to  their  preys  do  rouse. 
Thou  marvell'st  at  my  words:  .  .  ." 

After  all,  some  of  the  Rhymers  had  better  have  thought 
of  Shakespeare  as  did  Gray  ;  he  was  of  opinion  that — 

"  the  poet  was  open  to  criticism  of  every  kind,  but  he  should  not 
care  to  be  the  person  who  undertook  it." 


248 


XXVII 
THE  BOY  AND  WHAT  HE  READS 


"  Boys  are  a  necessary  evil,  growing  into  an  unnecessary  good." 

Anon. 


"'Robinson  Crusoe'  contains  more  religion,  more  philosophy, 
more  psychology,  more  political  economy,  more  anthropology  than 
are  found  in  many  learned  treatises  on  these  special  subjects." 

Frederic  Harrison. 


XXVII 

The  Boy  and  What  he  Eeads 


ABOVE  all,"  wrote  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Mon- 
tagu, that  enthusiastic  lover  of  books,  to  her 
daughter,  Lady  Bute,  "  teach  your  children 
to  love  reading."  Schoolmasters  and  librarians  have  long 
discussed  the  question  of  juvenile  reading ;  they  have 
drawn  up  lists  of  "  best  books  " — a  polite  way  of  shoving 
the  immortals  down  other  people's  throats — and  stimulated 
publishers  to  multiply  Dickens  and  Thackeray,  and  Feni- 
more  Cooper  and  Henty  ;  and  yet,  in  spite  of  it  all,  I  rather 
fancy  that  the  average  city  boy  has,  on  the  whole,  remained 
faithful  to  those  transpontine  stories  of  blood  and  fire  which 
are  so  sternly  repudiated  by  the  cultured  Olympians.  Any 
traveller  in  trains,  trams,  'buses,  or  the  occupier  of  a  seat 
at  a  popular  place  of  entertainment,  must  now  and  again 
have  seen  the  Boy  I  mean  furtively  disentangle  from  his 
back  pockets  one  of  those  gaily-coloured  supplements,  and 
devour  it  with  as  much  avidity  as  he  would  an  apple. 
It  is  good  to  see  any  one  so  ready  to  be  illuded.  Nowa- 
days the  magic  of  old  Dumas  and  Sir  Walter,  and  Thackeray 
and  even  Don  Quixote  and  old  Sancho  Panza  does  not  seem 
to  capture  some  of  us  so  completely  as  it  did  in  the  long 
ago. 

Few  men  remain  so  buoyantly  young  as  Stevenson,  who 

251 


The  Boy  and  What  he  Reads 


by  virtue  of  that  very  fact  was  able  to  produce  what  is 
incontestably  the  finest  boy's  tale  of  our  generation.  It 
is  not  at  all  a  simple  thing  to  guide  the  average  boy  along 
the  path  which  will  lead  him  to  the  best  things  in  literature. 
And  you  certainly  cannot  drive  him.  To  begin  with  he 
demands  a  spacious  stage,  and  the  play  of  the  great  ele- 
mental passions,  blood,  hate,  revenge ;  for  subtle  finished 
writing  and  psychology  he  does  not  care  a  rap.  He  has 
no  more  imagination  than  a  dog  or  a  horse ;  he  must  have 
action,  movement,  colour,  in  all  his  stories,  no  matter  how 
extravagant,  now  unreal,  how  bloodthirsty  they  are. 
Above  all  there  must  not  be  a  dash  of  sentimentality,  or 
he  will  feel  only  a  pitying  contempt  for  the  author  and  refuse 
to  read  any  further. 

It  is  also  well  to  remember  that  where  the  reader  of  the 
thrilling  "  shocker  "  is  concerned,  no  question  ever  arises 
as  to  the  methods  of  supply  and  distribution.  The  boy 
once  gets  the  fever  and  henceforth  reads  steadily  through 
a  course  of  Texas  Jacks  and  Arizona  Joes,  until  one  evil 
day  he  abandons  books  altogether  for  the  newspapers. 
That  is  a  retrograde  step ;  there  is  at  any  rate  romance  and 
glamour  and  the  pageantry  of  dreams  about  some  of  these 
poor  things,  be  they  literature  or  not.  The  daily  newspaper 
deals  in  ugly  realities. 

It  once  occurred  to  me  to  inquire  how  it  came  about 
that  the  average  office  boy  of  limited  resources  was  able 
to  replenish  his  stock  of  these  stories  so  easily.  Students 
of  these  matters  will  be  interested  to  know  that  in  the 
course  of  my  researches,  I  found  a  well-recognised  repository 
for  "  shockers  "  of  all  kinds,  and  to  this  repository  boys 

252 


The  Boy  and  What  he  Heads 


repaired  and  exchanged  for  a  copper  the  books  they  had 
just  read.  The  keeper  of  this  shop  was  a  dingy  old  philo- 
sopher of  sixty,  a  crooked  little  man  who  quoted  Pope  and 
Byron  and  read  the  Latin  and  Greek  authors  in  the  original. 
He  was  one  of  those  men  who  seem  to  have  been  born 
among  books  ;  and  whenever  you  visited  the  shop  there 
he  sat  among  his  collection  of  gay-backed  booklets,  quietly 
reading  Shakespeare  or  Marcus  Aurelius — a  fit  figure  for 
Charles  Lamb  to  spin  out  an  essay  about.  There  were 
thousands  of  volumes  of  sensational  literature  about  him, 
most  of  them  ear-marked,  dirty,  and  worn  with  much 
service.  The  old  man  trafficked  in  this  class  of  literature, 
and  was  proud  of  the  fact.  He  used  to  say  that  so  long 
as  boys  were  taught  to  read  at  all,  it  did  not  matter  very 
much  at  first  what  they  did  read.  All  other  things  would 
be  given  unto  them.  He  used  occasionally  to  read  a  few 
pages  of  these  weird  tales,  and  was  once  caught  with  a 
copy  of  "  Deadwood  Dick  "  in  his  hand.  The  visitor  ex- 
pressed surprise.  "  Do  you  remember,"  he  said,  "  the 
reply  of  Mrs.  Battle  to  the  young  man  who  saw  no  harm 
in  unbending  in  a  hand  at  whist  after  his  literary  labours  ? 
She  unbent  her  mind  after  whist  over  a  book.  I  unbend 
mine  over  '  Deadwood  Dick.'  Look !  I  have  reached 
a  passage  of  great  interest : — 

"  '  At  the  same  moment  the  sharp  report  of  a  pistol  rang  out  upon 
the  air,  and  without  a  word  or  a  moan  Deadwood  Dick  reeled  and 
tumbled  out  of  the  saddle.  The  same  shot  had  cut  away  a  ringlet 
of  Myrtle  McLean's  hair  in  its  passage.'  " 

I  read  this  story  myself  and  was  delighted  by  the  splendid 
recklessness  of  it  all.  The  touches  of  crude  melodrama 

253 


and  the  immaturity  of  style  passed  unnoticed  once  I  was 
in  the  grip  of  the  tale.  After  all  it  is  not  a  far  cry  from 
tales  like  this  to  the  splendours  of  "  Monte  Cristo  "  and 
the  romance  of  Fenimore  Cooper's  fights  with  Red  Indians. 

Bad  and  indifferent  books  are  often  popular  because  the 
boys  who  read  them  lack  proper  guidance  at  the  moment 
the  wonders  of  print  are  opening  out  to  their  imagination. 
No  healthy  boy  can  resist  "  Tom  Brown's  Schooldays," 
and  though  he  has  a  partiality  for  pirates,  the  story  of 
"  Henry  Esmond,  Esq." — that  incomparable  hero  of  an 
almost  incomparable  tale — will  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  draw 
him  indoors  on  a  fine  day.  I  would  not  venture  to  say  so 
much  for  "  Pendennis  "  ;  he  is  more  for  the  adolescent, 
who  has  seen  something  of  the  world  and  been  caught  by 
the  flutter  of"  a  Fotheringay  petticoat.  Those  crooked  and 
unnatural  little  creatures  in  Dickens's  gallery  of  boys  are 
nearly  always  popular ;  Smike  and  the  Artful  Dodger  and 
Fagin  are  caricatures,  but  the  same  primitive  instinct  which 
leads  a  boy  to  place  a  dwarf  or  a  sword-swallower  on  a 
higher  artistic  level  than  Irving  or  Melba  warms  him  to- 
wards these  strange  abnormalities. 

But  children  differ  greatly  in  their  tastes.  Most  little 
girls  delight  in  "  Alice  in  Wonderland,"  and  boys  regard  it 
as  "  rot."  "  Robinson  Crusoe "  shares  with  "  Monte 
Cristo "  and  "  Gulliver's  Travels "  the  allegiance  of  all 
boys,  be  they  readers  of  "  shockers  "  or  not ;  and  it  is 
perhaps  a  pity  that  girls  have  so  few  classics. 


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